If you can't ask in your own journal, whose journal can you ask in?

[kitanzi]

Ok, I actually want to know. I do know that a great many people are fussy and particular and knowledgeable about wines. Me, I know what I like - much like art. Can you tell me WHAT you like in wines, and what wines you like, and why? I'm actually curious, and interested in learing more about it. Most of my exposure to "Wine tasting" has been through someone who I have trouble communicating with in the best of circumstances, and this all seems so nebulous and (forgive me) often pretentious that I just don't seem to get it. There are a couple wines I get fairly often, at least when I get wine, but I'm interested in trying something new and a lot of this seems absurdly expensive to me for taking a blind leap of faith on. (I was tempted to buy the Our Daily Red just for the name and label - I'm such a sad sucker for puns!) Are any of you wine drinkers? Feel free to pontificate, even lecture - how ever you can, give me information! Thanks!

EDIT: Cooking wines too, for that matter. I know several of you are accomplished cooks!

Comments

[zencuppa.livejournal.com]

Regarding cooking wines, don't buy the salted, pretreated stuff labeled "cooking wine" at the store . . It's gross.

Instead, use what you have that is *closest* to what the recipe recommends. I'd suggest actually buying a wine for a recipe, if it's an integral part of the taste (Burgundy stew, etc.)

[kitanzi.livejournal.com]

Ok, that's pretty much what I've been doing anyhow, I just don't do it very often so I thought I'd ask advice. Thanks!

[persis.livejournal.com]

Ditto what Andrea says about cooking wines. The salt is there so the cooks *won't* drink them. They are very cheap wines to begin with... cheap as in the wines with screw tops. (Although I have heard that some of the better wineries are thinking of going to screw tops for their good wimes... hmmmm.)

You can also use something similar; I have used merlots and shirazes for Boeuf Bourgignon (Beef Burgundy) with great success.

[persis.livejournal.com]

On the same note, *never* cook with something you won't also drink.

[chirosinger.livejournal.com]

Agreed on that one. If I cook with wine it is generally the stuff left over from dinner of the previous night. You can make some superb sauces deglazing a frying pan in which you braise or cook an entre.

[teddywolf.livejournal.com]

Well, I won't drink a dry if I can help it, but I find that a good one can be very good for cooking. There are some flavors from some foods better conveyed through starting with a dry than a sweet.

[kitanzi.livejournal.com]

I hadn't realized cooking wines had added salt - clearly, I've never tried drinking them. :) Mostly I've just gotten cheap regular wine and used that - and not all that often, even, which is why I'm looking for other people's expertise.

[cellio]

I usually cook with inexpensive regular wine, and never with the salted "cooking wine".

My level of granularity for cooking is to generally divide wines into four buckets, sweet/dry and red/white, and cook with whichever is closest to what the recipe calls for. Oh, get wines with screw caps for this, unless you're cooking so much food that you don't have to deal with recorking.