Wine and fortified wine in the kitchen

Fermented grape juice as a cooking ingredient — the red of a boeuf bourguignon and a ragù, the white of a risotto and a beurre blanc, and the fortified wines, sherry, Madeira, Marsala, port and vermouth, that deglaze, flavour and finish sauces across Europe.

Where it comes from

Wine went into the pot as soon as it went into the cup; the Romans cooked with it and reduced it to syrups, and the wine-growing regions of France, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Greece built their cooking around the local bottle — coq au vin and boeuf bourguignon in Burgundy, the white-wine sauces of the Loire, the Marsala of Sicily’s scaloppine and zabaglione, the sherry of Andalusian stews and the port of Portuguese and English sauces. Cooking wine does not need to be good, but it needs to be sound: a corked or oxidised wine cooks into a corked or oxidised sauce.

Fortified wines — wines with spirit added, stopping the fermentation and preserving them — are the cook’s most useful bottles because they keep for months open: dry sherry, Madeira and Marsala give depth and a nutty sweetness to sauces, soups and braises; sweet Marsala and port go into desserts and with game; dry white vermouth, fortified and herb-infused, replaces white wine in almost any recipe and is better for it. Mirin, sake and Shaoxing wine — rice wines — do the same work in Japanese and Chinese cooking and are on their own pages.

Varieties

• Dry red wine — For braises, ragùs, red wine sauces and poaching fruit; a medium-bodied, unoaked, drinkable red. Burgundy tradition uses Pinot Noir; Italian ragù uses whatever is local.
• Dry white wine — For risotto, mussels, beurre blanc, deglazing a chicken pan and fish sauces; crisp, unoaked.
• Dry sherry (fino, manzanilla, amontillado) — Nutty, savoury; for consommé, Spanish stews, mushrooms and Chinese dishes as a stand-in for Shaoxing.
• Madeira and Marsala — Fortified and often aged; Madeira for sauces with beef and mushrooms, Marsala for veal, chicken and zabaglione.
• Port and sweet wines — Port reduces into a sauce for game and cheese; Sauternes and Muscat poach fruit and go into custards.
• Dry white vermouth — Herb-infused fortified wine; a better white wine for cooking, and it keeps open.

In the kitchen

Cook the alcohol off before adding other liquid: pour wine into the hot pan after browning, let it bubble and reduce by half or more, scraping, and the raw, sharp edge goes, leaving acidity and fruit. A braise wants enough wine to cover, then hours; a pan sauce wants a splash, reduced hard, then stock and butter. Never add wine to a cream sauce without reducing it first, or the acid curdles the cream.

Sherry, Madeira and Marsala are used by the spoonful: a tablespoon of dry sherry lifts a mushroom soup or a consommé; Marsala deglazes the pan for a veal scaloppine and is whisked with yolks and sugar over heat for zabaglione; Madeira makes the classic sauce for a fillet of beef. A glass of red poaches pears; a bottle of sweet wine poaches peaches. Wine that is past drinking but not faulty is fine for the pot.

Choosing and keeping

An opened bottle of table wine keeps a few days for cooking, a week or more in the fridge; freezing leftover wine in an ice-cube tray gives cooking portions for months. Fortified wines keep for months once opened — fino sherry a few weeks, oloroso, Madeira and Marsala much longer; Madeira almost indefinitely.

Avoid anything labelled ‘cooking wine’, which is salted and poor. Buy the cheapest sound bottle of a drinkable dry wine and a bottle each of dry sherry and dry vermouth for the cupboard.

Wine and fortified wine in the kitchen is tagged on 332 dishes from 109 countries in the atlas. These notes are written from general knowledge and carry no per-fact citation — see About.