Are there any good, cheap wine brands that are good for both cooking and drinking? I don't really know shit about wine, beyond just the general rules behind white versus red. I do like to cook a few dishes that use white wine however, and I like drinking, so...does anyone know of a good brand that serves both purposes"?

(Btw, I'm referring to the cheap 8-12 dollar wines that you see in the grocery store.)

Also: I sometimes just buy vermouth, though I find the flavor doesn't show up very well in the food.

I drink Pale Dry Select cooking wine. It's sherry. Tastes kind of like ass but it's cheap. Seven bucks at the LCBO.

Generally I avoid cooking with any wine that isn't fit for drinking.

Which means $8 - $12 generally won't cut it for me.

You could just do it the Italian/French way, just buy wine that you enjoy drinking and whenever you open a bottle leave a bit of it and keep it there for cooking.

You can cook with wine that has been open even for weeks, it really doesn't matter, especially since when you use wine for cooking you just use very small amounts, you just don't flood your food with it just put a little.

It's usually a good idea to avoid cooking wines as they tend to be shit, just leave half a glass worth in the bottle and use that.


I just totally misread your thread buddy, no I don't know of any brands, sorry.

I don't cook with wine, but there is this cheap wine I always get in the box when I drink wine. God I can't think of the name of it right now, but it is about the same quality as Sutter Home, goes down like grape juice and it gets you drunk pretty fast for cheap so its one of my favorites. Franzia i think it was.

i've heard varying things about cooking wine vs. drinking wine.


floyd always goes ' don't use wine you wouldn't drink to cook with'

and i've heard Gordon Ramsay say it doesn't matter what wine you use, house wine is fine, since most of the wine evaporates or something.

Jesus, you do not want to be the girl drinking sherry at a party...

But on topic, your best bet is to just ask in a liquor store. I don't know how selling booze works where you are, but I would assume a liquor store would have cheap shit with the added bonus of having someone slightly more qualified than a 14 year old chinese kid to offer suggestions based on what they actually have there.

Gewurztraminer (fortino's has it for about 12$), it's a white wine, however I normally use it in a lot of my sauces, adds a great little taste to it.

It's really hard to recommend "brands" for wine, especially on a budget, man. I really don't know that much about wine, but i know how to choose a fairly decent bottle which i'll like; suits me, actually.

Just have a look at the bottle, aside from all the wanky "chocolate undertones with subtle truffle" bollocks, there should be some indication of how dry the wine is, which you can use to match it to whatever you're producing. A sweeter white wine might work better with some sea-food, for example. Never buy table wine or "cooking wine", they're just shit, and you wouldn't wana drink them with your meal, so why bother...? Get some semi-decent cheap stuff; $8-10 kinda range, either Californian or imported (lots of the 06 Australian/New Zealand wines are loveeeeely) or some South American wine...?

Chilean and Argentinian wine always seems pretty good to me, but bear in mind i'm usually buying a budget bottle, rarely spending over £5 or getting older than an '05 bottle. That said, i've drunk expensive wine, and clearly I don't have a "complex" palate, cos good cheap wine is hardly that inferior to the "average" expensive stuff.

Your best bet is to buy a few bottles and just sample as you cook!

Madeira?