Selecting wine and cooking with wine

Ebony, Feb, 2003

A new and spreading craze in Black America is cooking with wine and drinking wine with meals. But although the practices can be found at all levels of society, there is widespread confusion about how to select the proper wine from the thousands of different bottles on the shelves or those available in restaurants.

In dealing with these and other problems, the first thing to do is relax and enjoy yourself. There are no hard and fast rules, and paying a lot of money for a bottle of wine does not mean that you will like it. Everyone's taste is different, and the first trick to finding the right bottle of wine for you is to learn what you like and dislike.

Try not to get caught up buying what critics and friends call "the best." Buy what you like, and experiment. The more you taste wines from good-quality vineyards from around the world, the more you will learn to distinguish between taste and aroma.

An important point to understand at the beginning is that wine is simply the fermented juice of fresh grapes. The wine flavor changes according to the type of grapes used, the location of the vineyard, the climate, weather conditions, grape-growing methods, winemaking techniques, the aging regimen and equipment. Because of weather conditions and other factors, wine produced in certain years are considered premium wines. Some wines, red Bordeaux for example, are made from a blend of different grapes. Other wines, cabernet sauvignon for example, are made from a particular grape.

How do you determine what wine is best for you? The answer is simple. You educate your palate by tasting different wines, going from drier to sweeter and saving the full-bodied reds for the end. After the wine is poured, hold it up to the light and look at the color. If it is red, check to see if it is a deep, rich red. A deep red may mean more tanning taste. (Tanning gives red wine its mouth-puckering quality and occasionally some bitterness.) If the wine is white, check to see how clear or how yellow it is, keeping in mind that color may mean a more complex wine.

Next, sniff the wine. What do you smell? Pineapple? Cherries? Apricot? Apple? The smell is usually an indication of how the wine tastes--if you don't like the smell, you probably won't like the wine. Next, take a sip to get rid of other tastes in your mouth. Then take a second sip to taste the true flavor. Don't swallow right away; let the wine linger on your taste buds. Since different parts of your mouth reveal different flavors, the full flavor emerges as the wine lingers in your mouth before swallowing.

The basic flavor profiles are fairly simple. Sauvignon blanc, for example, has a citrus and melon taste and reminds you of lemon, lime, honeydew and green apples. Chardonnay, which is very popular, has the ripe fruit flavor of apple, pear, fig and apricot. Merlot is elegant and rich, with berry, plum and cherry flavor. Some merlots suggest herbs and spices, chocolate flavors, toasted oak and some tanning. cabernet sauvignon is rich and well-developed with currant and dark fruit, tar, tobacco, spice and cedar.

Zinfandel is ripe and robust, with sweet fruit flavor, suggesting cherry, berry, plum, peppery spice. Pinot noir is light and easy with black cherry, berry and plum fruit flavors.

Cooking with wines can add a remarkable richness to sauces, stews, soups and desserts. To prevent a raw taste, always thoroughly "reduce" (cooking the dish so that some of the liquid will evaporate) the wine during cooking. Reduce red wine by half and white wine even more. First, alcohol evaporates, then the wine becomes concentrated, leaving a wonderful essence to your finished dish. So don't worry about anyone getting tipsy when they eat a dish cooked with wine. This evaporation is an important part of the cooking process, as in the extended cooking of stews or the simmering of a sauce. Sometimes the wine is reduced on its own, as when red wine is used to deglaze (a process by which a liquid such as stock wine, water, etc., is added to a pan after browning meat or other food to dissolve the browned bits or residue) pan juices for beef, poultry, pork etc. Some sweet wines (such as Madeira or marsala) can add a little kick to desserts. By pouring a little over fresh fruit or adding some in a trifle, the flavor can be enhanced.

Try adding different wines to some of your favorite recipes for a welcome, palate-pleasing change. And remember, when cooking with wines, you can use the less expensive brands without negatively affecting the taste.

If you are concerned about serving the right wine with the right food, don't allow those thoughts to affect you. Serve whatever you like, despite the long-acepted rule that states you should serve white wine with poultry, fish and seafood, and red wines with beef, pork, lamb (red meat), etc.

If you have questions or are a bit hesitant about choosing the right wine, here are some suggestions to consider when selecting the wine for your meal.

* Choose a wine that adds flavor to the dish and highlights flavors. Keep in mind that ingredients added to a dish--such as spices, peppers and sauces--may require a more or less full-bodied wine or a wine with a different group of flavors.