What is the difference between cooking wine and drinking wine

The uncooked Chardonnay wasn't as acidic as the Sauvignon Blanc, but its acidity concentrated significantly during cooking, and was the most noticeable quality once cooked; its oakiness, while detectable, was a much more minor flavor once cooked. I repeated this test with two red wines: an oaky, jammy Cabernet Sauvignon with soft tannins, and a light, tart Beaujolais Villages.

Once reduced, both reds showed the same pattern as the whites, with their acidity becoming much more pronounced. That ripe, jammy fruitiness of the Cabernet Sauvignon helped balance some of the concentrated sourness of the cooked version, whereas the Beaujolais, with less ripe fruit flavors, was more harshly acidic once reduced.

Isolating the wines like this was enlightening, but it's not a realistic example of cooking with wine, since other ingredients will have a big effect on how things taste.

I needed to do some real cooking. To test the effect of a wine's flavor on a quick-cooked dish, I whipped up several batches of pan-seared pork loin cutlets, deglazing each pan with wine once the pork was done.

The wines I compared here were the tart Sauvignon Blanc; the oaky, buttery Chardonnay; the lean, light Beaujolais; and the jammy, oaky Cabernet Sauvignon. I kept things very simple, whisking in some good gelatinous chicken stock once each wine had reduced, and finishing the sauce with some butter. Sure enough, the same thing I had noticed with the plain dry wines was the biggest factor here as well: Their acidity had the biggest impact on the flavor of the pan sauce.

Most notably, the tart Sauvignon Blanc produced a pan sauce that tasted like it had been finished with a squeeze of lemon juice, even though it hadn't. All the others also had a bright, acidic flavor—not as much as the Sauvignon Blanc, but enough not to require any additional acid in the pan sauce.

That doesn't mean all pan sauces made with wine won't need an acid to balance the flavor, since that depends on the types and quantities of each ingredient in the sauce, but it supports the observation that a wine's acidity, above almost all else aside from sugar , will have the biggest flavor impact.

As for the pan sauces made from the red wines, they were incredibly similar. I had my girlfriend Kate blind taste them, and she was unable to distinguish between the two. Not only that, but the differences between the red- and white-wine-based sauces were more subtle than one might expect: While she could distinguish between them when tasting blind literally blind, since the color is a dead giveaway , the only clear clue, she said, was the difference in acidity.

I've been working on a recipe for coq au vin, the Burgundian classic of chicken braised in red wine, and thought it was a good opportunity to explore wine choices in long-cooked dishes. Traditionally, coq au vin is made with red Burgundy wine, which is made from Pinot Noir grapes, but Burgundy is so expensive that it's not really an option for cooking unless you can afford to burn money.

Instead I experimented with five different wine types: a fake cooking "Wine Product," which is low in alcohol and made from a blend of table wine, juice, salt, and other additives; an inexpensive lighter bodied red; an inexpensive full-bodied, oaky and tannic red; a medium-bodied boxed wine; and a bottle of spoiled red wine that had been sitting open on my counter for two weeks.

When it comes to wine, there are many types of faults. The wine can be corked or have heat damage; it can smell of sulfur or vinegary acetic acid; it can be oxidized or smell like paint thinner. I wasn't able to test all types of flawed wine, and some may well risk ruining a dish, but this test showed that while a wine may be past its prime as far as drinking is concerned, there are some circumstances when you can get away with cooking with it. When I was working on my cheese fondue recipe , I played a bit with the wines in it.

I tested the recipe with both light, tart Pinot Grigio, and buttery, oaky Chardonnay. And as I wrote in my story , I found little difference between the two flavor-wise, even though very tart wines are, in theory, supposed to help emulsify the cheese sauce better. The alcohol level greatly affects the final outcome when cooking with wine.

We recommend sticking to a dry wine if you want to use a white wine in the cooking process. Studies show that there are no adverse effects on pregnant women or their babies from consuming food cooked with wine. The major factor that makes it okay to consume food cooked with wine is that a lot of the alcohol is cooked off.

Drinking cooking wine would be a health risk for both the mother and the baby. According to Harvard Medical School, a small amount of wine may be acceptable early on. However, since there is little data on the subject it is recommended to avoid drinking altogether. Drinking cooking wine can get you drunk, but cooking with it will not. As noted above, cooking wine has a high ABV.

Regardless of any other content, high levels of alcohol are entirely capable of getting someone drunk. Drinking cooking wine would be equivalent to drinking a heavier red wine. Unfortunately, the flavorful tannins of the red wine would be overpowered in cooking wine by salt. Cooking with the wine would burn off enough of the alcohol that it is unlikely to have any impact. Yes, cooking wine will go bad after enough time, even if left unopened.

Cooking wine tends to have an expiration date of about one year. An unopened bottle of cooking wine is still good to use beyond that date. Some bottles may be fine after three to five years, but we wouldn't risk it. Always follow the recommended wine storage temperature , even cooking wine. You don't want to find out the hard way can wine go bad. An opened bottle of cooking wine only remains good for a little over one year. Remember to refrigerate once opened. You can even freeze the wine if you want to eke out a little more life.

Make sure to check the expiration date on your bottle and replace it if there's any doubt about the contents.

Just because it's been sitting on your shelf for two years doesn't make it an aged wine. Cooking wine is no different than other kinds of alcoholic beverages. Dear Dr. Vinny, So-called "cooking wines" have a nasty reputation, and I've actually never heard a single good thing about them.

Ask Dr. Vinny Cooking. More In Dr. Vinny Ask Dr. Explore Newsletters. Restaurant Search.