Serious Eats
Go Ahead, Cook With That Cheap Plonk
Julia Child once said, "If you do not have a good wine to use, it is far better to omit it, for a poor one can spoil a simple dish and utterly debase a noble one," but in today's New York Times Julia Moskin says cheap wine works just fine.
She did a blind taste test of three risottos, each made with a different red wine. The most expensive was a $70 Barolo, the cheapest was a Charles Shaw cabernet sauvignon Trader Joe's shoppers know as Two-Buck Chuck. Barolo is "made entirely from the nebbiolo grape, is a legendary Italian wine; by law, it must be aged for at least three years to soften its aggressive tannins and to transform it into the smooth aristocrat that fetches top dollar on the international wine market." Not only did the risotto made with Two-Buck Chuck come out on top, but none of the judges had the risotto made with Barolo as their top choice.