You’re watching a cooking show on TV and notice that the bottle of wine to be used has its label turned around. The host/chef says, “Use a wine you would drink,” but fails to say what that particular wine is for help visit www.cat-head-biscuit.com. Or you prepare a dish from a published recipe. It calls for a half cup of red wine; and that’s it. Maybe it specifies a “dry” red wine. You have little insight as to what to use.Some Historical PerspectiveIt was not always so vague. Classic French recipes include such dishes as Chicken Montrachet in which a very specific wine is called for. Too bad that that wine now costs around $300. But if you knew that Montrachet was in fact a Chardonnay, you might find a very suitable substitute within your budget. Boeuf Bourguinnone originated in Burgundy and was always made with Pinot Noir. best way to lose weight How would you know that from reading a modern cookbook that only calls for “dry red wine?”In spite of these historic dishes, cookbook authors have almost always taken the view that expensive, fine wine should be reserved for the table and not cooked down to an essence. Even the iconic French chef Auguste Escoffier, after giving the most detailed cooking instructions prior to Julia Child, calls for “a red or white vin ordinaire” in the preparation of braised meats?including Boeuf Bourguinonne. No help at all.Such instructions led a generation of North American cooks to the opinion that cooking removes so many qualities a wine may possess that we should use poor quality wines for cooking. One American company added insult to injury by offering a range of “cooking wines” that added salt (insult) to already poor wines (injury).