Cooking Wine: Why it's bad for you

Friends, something I need to address before we carry on with the lectures.

Cooking wine. Don't use it.

I know, I know, it can be bought in the supermarket, it's in those nice small bottles, and it lasts a long time.

Do you know why it lasts so long? Anyone? Bueller?

Yup. That's right. It's SALTED. Now say it with me... "EEEEEEWWWWWWW!"

No one should ever use this stuff. That goes double for you, Ms. High Blood Pressure.

Wine is NOT supposed to be salted. EVER. It changes the fundamental flavour of wine. Plus it's an amount of salt that you can't control.

It's all about the flavour. Salted butter hides the fact that it might be going rancid. Or has picked up that funky fridge flavour. Which then affects the final flavour of the dish, because that salt distributes itself through the whole dish and allows the bad notes to come through.

That's not even including the fact that salted wine is just BAD. Bad flavour, bad texture, bad acids.

Do me a favour. Next time you're at the market, bypass the cooking wine. Buy everything you need for your meal, then head over to your local little wine store. Talk to someone. Tell them what you're making, and let them direct you to a nice inexpensive wine that you can use for three or four days, or drink, if you're so inclined.

Some small stores even have half bottles available for purchase. If you only need a cup or two of wine, grab one of these, and have at it.

Enjoy cooking!

Oak: The good, the bad, and the buttery.

Oak, and its influence on wine:

• Wines can be matured in different sorts of vessels. Small oak barrels (50 L) new or old, large oak barrels, and stainless steel vats. The material used affects the flavour of the wine. The size, age, and char (on oak) determines how the material affects the flavour.
• Oak can be either new or old (previously used for at least one vintage).
• It can be light char, medium char, or heavy char. The char level affects the "toasted" notes such as nuttiness, caramel, etc.
• Flavours imparted by oak include vanilla, coconut, tobacco, tar, spice box (cinnamon, clove, allspice), wood, nuts, and butter.
• During oak aging, malolactic fermentation is encouraged, where bacteria consume the malic acid and produce lactic acid (the same acid as in milk). This imparts a buttery, creamy texture to the wine and when used properly can result in a beautifully smooth and delicious beverage. When overused, it creates a wine that is "over-oaked," or lacking fruit.

Tasting oak on a wine is actually pretty easy. Roll the wine around in your mouth for a moment. Does it have the same texture as milk or melted butter? Smooth, round, creamy, and soft would be the adjectives used to describe the texture. Try to pick out some of the flavours. There might be vanilla, coconut, or butterscotch on a white wine, or vanilla, tobacco, tar, or caramel on a red. The flavours might be subtle, as in a very well-aged burgundy, or very noticeable, as on a California Chardonnay. An over-oaked wine might have a distinct "woody" note - almost as if you had licked a 2x4.

There's a disagreement in modern winemaking and critiquing over what constitutes "over-oaked." A current trend is towards very ripe, high-alcohol wines with a lot of heavy fruit flavours. These wines, in order to keep acid levels manageable, require a long aging period on new, lightly-toasted oak. This results in an explosion of flavours, many of which are considered faults by the old-school crowd. What it comes down to is figuring out whether you like oak, or dislike it. Take that preference to your wine retailer (make sure she's a good one), and let her pick out some wines for you to try.

The next post will be about sugar, and how wines can trick you into thinking they have some, when they're completely dry.

Wine 101

Having a 101 course on one's wine blog seems to be necessary these days. So here's the rundown of some key wine terms:

First, the types of wine:

• White wines: Made from red, purple/black, or white grapes, the juice is pressed off the skins and fermented. No tannins, relying entirely on citric and tartric acids for structure. Minimal aging potential, limited to particular grapes, regions, and wineries. Primary flavours tend to be citrus, floral, mineral, and tree fruits.
• Red wines: Made from red & purple/black grapes, the fruit is pressed and fermented on the skins. Tannins provide structure & aging potential, along with acids. Primary flavours tend to be berries, earth, some dark floral (rose/violet), and pitted fruits (such as plum).
• Rosé wines: Made from red & purple/black grapes, the fruit is pressed, fermented for a short time on the skins, then drained off to complete fermentation & maturation similar to a white. Minimal tannins, if any. No aging potential, intended to be drunk young. Primary flavours are all over the place, everything from citrus to black fruit, depending on method of fermentation, type of grape, and length of time on the skins. Some rosés are made by blending a red and white, though this is not a common method.
• White (Zinfandel, Merlot, etc): Made by picking the dark-skinned grape before full ripeness, adding sugar pre-fermentation (chapitalization), then fermenting the same way as a rosé and bottling. The addition of sugar is to counter the higher acid content that results from an early harvest, and to ensure enough sugar for fermentation. Picking the grapes early allows for less exactitude in fermentation and maturation.
• Dessert wines: Made one of three ways; late harvest, noble rot (botrytis), or eiswein (grapes frozen on the vine & pressed before thawing). Very sweet, can be either red or white. Frequently slightly syrupy with honey or molasses notes.

Next up, some wine terms that might confuse the heck out of most non-experts:

• Tannin: A chemical found in wine, tea, and other foods. Gives a "dried-out" feeling to the inside of the mouth. Used in tanning leather (therefore the name "tannin"). Helps preserve the wine for long aging, and gives structure to the flavours of the wine. Only found in wines exposed to the skins during fermentation (red wines). Frequently imparts a bitter flavour. High levels of tannin are found in Barolo and Barbaresco wines from the Piedmont region of Italy.
  
• Citric acid: Same acid in orange or grapefruit juice. Gives a tight prickly feeling along the lower jaw, and increases saliva production along the sides of the tongue. Provides structure to flavours. Sauvignon Blanc has quite a bit of citric acid.
  
• Tartaric acid: Cream of Tartar. Occasionally forms harmless crystals in the bottom of wine bottles. Provides "crispness" and affects the apparent sweetness of a wine. Chenin Blanc has a high level of tartaric acid.
  
• Nose: What you smell when you stick your nose in the glass.
• Notes: The flavours in a wine. Like in a piece of music, the individual notes form a chord of harmony, or a dissonant noise.

Levels of sweetness:

• Dry/Trocken/Sec: A wine that has no residual sugar (less than 4-9 g/L, depending on acid content), post-fermentation. Most wines are dry.
• Semi-Sweet/Half-Sweet/Halbtrocken/Demi-Sec: Some residual sugar.
  
• Medium Sweet/Lieblich/Moelleux: More sugar than in a semi-sweet, but not enough to be considered a dessert wine.
• Sweet/Süss/Doux: Very high levels of sweetness, more than 45 g/L.
• Occasionally, the apparent sweetness of wine does not equal its residual sugar level.

So there you have a few of the basic wine terms. Next up? Oak, and its influence on wine. The good and the bad.

Musings of a Wine Geek

Wine Geek.

Professional Alcoholic

Wino.

Wine-eer.

I've been called a lot of things during the last five years, half of them in jest. Heck, I've called myself all of these names at various points. Recently, I've found myself more immersed in online wine culture via Twitter, and it's provided an opportunity to explore what exactly it means to be a wine geek.

In the past, I've attempted something similar to this, but with a much wider scope. This time, I won't try to structure this blog quite as much, but let it flow naturally. Reviews, articles, and comments about bottles, label and packaging design, types of wine, and my experiences with all of the above.