Cooking with wine

Using wine in food and pairing wine with food are greatly misunderstood concepts.

Although both are incredibly complicated, they are at the same time very simple if you keep to two general guidelines:

When cooking with wine, treat it as a spice or flavor.
When pairing wine with food, consider its acidity or tartness as the key 

Reds

Dry reds add grip, depth and a pleasant balance to richness.Sweet reds add a deep, syrupy, semi-sweetness to a sauce.
Reds add color. Whether dry or sweet, when used as a marinade they’ll leave white meats like pork and chicken pink. In my view, reds also toughen and muddy the flavor of a dish unless it’s a roast, which cooks for a long time. 

Whites

Dry whites add necessary tartness and structure to a dish to counteract and balance richness, dairy and olive oil.
Sweet whites add bright, toned sweetness to a sauce. When reduced, they can impart a light caramel tone.
Dry or sweet, a white-wine marinade doesn’t leave color as a red does but can leave a spirituous flavor on a dish.

Pork, chicken, fish and shellfish actually begin to cook from the acidity in a dry white, leaving it tough. I wouldn’t recommend marinating for more than half an hour. Even better, don’t combine the food and the wine at all.

Make the marinade separately and use it to “paint” your dish regularly every 5 to 15 minutes of cooking. This introduces the flavor to the outside of the meat and the heat turns it into a moisture-sealer and glaze.  

Red or white: Never add “raw” (uncooked) wine to a dish, such as when finishing a soup. It will give an unpleasantly hot and bitter character to the dish. 

Source: Wine and Food Blog

 

 

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