What to do with leftover wine?
Oh, to have such problems . . that can be so pleasantly resolved. If you have found yourself with several opened bottles of wine following your wine tasting, consider the following very rewarding avenues of disposal:
- Make a stew:
Beef bourguignon--red wine, such as a Burgundy- Daube of beef--red, like a Côte du Rhône
- Coq au vin--red or white
- Bouillabaisse--white or rosé
- Poach fish, shellfish, pork, or poultry by adding wine to a broth, along with some veggies and herbs--usually a white.
- Make a simple sauce by deglazing the roasting or sauté pan with a little wine. Save a small amount of the fat from the pan, add the wine, a tablespoon at a time, scraping the sides of the pan as you stir the gravy--red or white.
- Replace part of the water with wine when you are making a stock--red or white.
- Marinate some meat or poultry--red usually goes with red meat and white with white meat.
- Add a little to your spaghetti sauce--red, your Béarnaise sauce--white, your beurre blanc--white, or your Bordelaise sauce--red.
- Braise--slow cook--some meat such as a piece of London Broil or go all the way and make an osso buco--red.
- For your dessert, consider poaching some fruit--pears and apples are the usual ones--by making a wine syrup with water, sugar, and maybe a vanilla bean or citrus zest, cloves, or a cinnamon stick.
- If you don't have time for a marathon cooking session following your event, consider Harvey Steiman's suggestion to "prereduce wine by boiling it for five minutes and then freezing it in ice cube trays to use later." (Mr. Steiman is the editor-at-large of Wine Spectator magazine and author of Essentials of Wine, recommended in our resource section.)
Remember that all the alcohol in a dish does not usually evaporate. Even a dish that has cooked for upwards of 2 ½ hours probably still has 5% of the alcohol.
If you still have leftover wine, fill the smallest wine bottle that will accommodate the remaining wine (so that less air is left in contact with the liquid). Recork with a vacuum seal device (such as Vacu-Vin) or screw on the cap if it's one of the increasingly common screw-tops. Store in a cool area, away from light. Leftover wine, stored properly, can keep for up to a week.
