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Ask a Wine-Know: What to do with less-than-great wines
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Anonymous user Mon Jul 23, 2007 13:25:38 PDT
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0 responses 0 comments Some time ago I received this question: “What do I do with wines that turned out to be less than great? For example, gifts, misguided purchases.”
I like this question. Not only is it a fun thing to think about, but it also comes up more often than you might suppose in the life of us wine nuts.
Once it gets around that you are interested in wine, that soon becomes the gift you receive from dinner guests over the next several years. Then your family and closest friends make sure no Christmas or birthday or anniversary goes without a carefully selected bottle in a festive wine bag. But hey, I’m not knocking this practice. It’s great to have kind and thoughtful friends even if you become awash in a sea of grape juice.  And you all know that most hobbies result in accumulating more stuff than you possibly have room for.
You store it (or  “cellar” it as we winos say) and you drink it later. But, as the question asked, what do you do with it if it’s less than great? You can’t always blame others for all the less than great wine in your collection. All wine lovers, who come home from every wine country excursion with more bottles than they intended, uncork at least one, pour a glass, and say to themselves, “Why did I ever buy this?” It did seem very likable at 10 a.m. last Saturday morning. Hmm. What do I do with this?”
• Pour it over pot roast.
•  Add it to the marinade for tomorrow’s grilling.
• Put a touch in salad dressing.
• Make a glaze for chicken.
• Mix it into spaghetti sauce.
• Mash it into meatballs.
• Make Sangria.
Remember I said “if it’s less than great.” The wine has to be drinkable. If it’s truly bad (corked, really funky, turned to vinegar, yucky, etc.) don’t drink it or eat it. Pour it out. You cannot disguise the taste that made it bad. If it’s a decent ordinary wine, find a way to enjoy it. Do this also with the leftover wine from dinner last night if you didn’t finish the bottle.
Hardy red wines are the best, of course, with beef dishes, and you can make pretty as well as delicate sauces and salad dressings out of rose wine, too. White wines are often wonderful in salad dressings. Try them in fruit salads!
Wine for cooking should already be in your kitchen. One should always have a bottle of Sherry on hand. You can’t make Stroganoff without it. Wine and food go together.  Always remember that. Wine is food. You can serve it in other ways than in a glass.
But because it’s summer, let’s talk about Sangria. Wine people everywhere get this urge when the weather becomes hot. If you’re not familiar with Sangria, the best way to describe it is a wine punch that can be made with either white or red wine. Most of the ones I know can really pack a wallop, due to the other alcoholic ingredient(s), so be careful. With us, it’s usually the only wine served during the evening. We also generally serve it with Mexican food. Yum!
My favorite summer Sangria is a Sangria Blanca. The recipe is one I’ve saved since the mid-1970’s when it appeared in a summer edition of Bon Appetit along with a number of suggestions for great dishes from the Southwestern United States area. The article was entitled “From Santa Fe with Feeling.”  Anyway, we use 1 bottle of any dry (not sweet) white wine. A good ordinary, inexpensive Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc or Riesling will do fine. Get it very chilled. Put it in the refrigerator early in the day.
Here’s your chance to get out that big beautiful punch bowl you haven’t used in years.
Pour a 1⁄2 cup of Cointreau or any other orange liqueur into a large clear glass pitcher. Add 1⁄4 cup sugar and the wine and blend well. In the meantime prepare the following fruit :1 unpeeled orange, sliced thin, 1 unpeeled lemon sliced, 2 limes cut in wedges, 4 fresh pineapple sticks, 1 unpeeled green apple cut in wedges, and very small bunches of green grapes. When ready to serve, stir in some ice cubes and 1 (10-ounce) bottle of club soda, chilled. Garnish the pitcher with pieces of fruit. This makes about one quart. Serve in those big bubble wine glasses that used to be popular before Riedels became the glasses of choice among winos.
If you’re having a large crowd, increase the ingredients and use the big punch bowl. It should be clear too, as this beverage is so attractive you will want to show it off!
Everyone will be back for seconds, at least. This will be your hit of the summer suppers. You can do it with red wine, too, but it’s not as pretty, even though it will be tasty. Now you know what to do with those “not-so-great” wines.
I have a related story that has to do more with the treasures of your cellar, the GREAT wines. Some years ago the late great columnist, Jack Smith of the Los Angeles Times, who had Bakersfield and Taft roots/connections if I remember right, did a column confessing the actions of his college-age kids who (we trust they were of legal drinking age) raided his esteemed wine cellar one night when their parents were away. Anyway Mom and Dad returned to discover many bottles of their best wine had been turned into Sangria for a party. I can still hear the groans of those wine lovers among us when they heard the story. I cried for him for a week!
And speaking of the Times, I wrote this column yesterday, am rereading it today before turning it in, and sure enough, in their Wednesday edition just out, their weekly wine column is on Sangria! Wouldn’t you know all of us winos think alike?  When it’s hot, we want a cool drink!
That makes for less wine drinking probably. Which makes for fewer wine events to report to you around town in the remaining summer weeks. Big news of wine happenings is that Terry Maxwell recently told me that he just received word that T.L. Maxwell’s is getting another award of excellence from Wine Spectator magazine. This is a big deal in the wine world, and I should tell all of you that he has an excellent wine list. Bakersfield should be proud! And we are, of him, and of Café Med, which also receives this award. Meir Brown and Terry Maxwell both work very hard to make us a reputable town for fine dining, for which a superior wine list is a necessity and hallmark .
Meir has opened a new wine room at Café Med, check it out. Also stop by and see what Gino Valpredo has been doing at Luigi’s. See his new wine room and new acquisitions. He has been very busy upgrading his wine offerings lately. The same is true for the Petroleum Club. They are working hard adding new wines and improving their offerings. I talked with friends at lunch there today who were enjoying a bottle of red wine called “The Prisoner” which is one of those hard to get very good wines.
If you’re looking for wine events to enliven the doldrums of summer, be sure to stop by any of the aforementioned restaurants and ask for a calendar of what’s happening for the rest of the summer.
Valentien’s has been having wine dinners. I heard good reports of a tasting devoted to Italian varietals and a special supper to celebrate Bastille Day on July 14. Jeramy is also hosting a Champagne tasting. Stop by and get his calendar!
Last, but not least, check out the new twice-monthly pasta suppers at Wine Me Up, 3900 Coffee Road. This new wine bar has some very good wines to complement the food of a chef trained at the Cordon Bleu school in San Francisco. Brunello di Montalcino anyone?

Wine questions? E-mail Ann at:
acierley@etcrier.net

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