In one of my cookbooks, the authors caution against using cheap wine in your cooking, saying that the differences between higher and lower qualities of wine become more pronounced as the wine cooks down. As a result, I’ve usually reserved cooking with wine for the occasional special dinner. Lately, though, I’ve become antsy, and wondered about using Two Buck Chuck (Charles Shaw label, available at Trader Joe’s for $1.99), and found this interesting article from the New York Times.
According to the article, they did a taste testing of different versions of Risotto al Barolo, a recipe from Mario Battali of Babbo in NYC, where the only difference was the costs of the wines they used. The tasting panel included seven members of the Dining Section staff at the New York Times. Surprisingly, the Charles Shaw Cabernet Savignon won the taste test. The conclusion of the article was that in most cases, the differences in the quality of wines become less, not more pronounced when used in cooking, partially because there were so many other ingredients that also played a role in the overall flavor.
I’m not sure if I’ll end up agreeing or not, but this made me happy enough to go out and buy a bottle of Two Buck Chuck Sauvignon Blanc today to try in a risotto. As you can see in the picture, I did have to slap on an extra label of my own to ward off a wine-loving husband of mine.
2 Comments
September 13, 2008 at 1:31 pm
I just introduced my wife to 2 buck chuck although where we are it’s 3 buck chuck. I was telling her about this taste testing. I’m going to have her read this tonight.I also wrote a short blog on 3 buck chuck. Please feel free to read & comment. Thank you.
http://thejoereview.com/
November 14, 2008 at 11:47 am
[...] or Three Buck Chuck works well in this dish (for more on using less expensive wine in dishes, click here). Another thing I did to save money was to save the broth from a chicken I cooked in the Crock [...]