Cooking wine my wife chose tonight

Got home from work and saw a bottle of 2010 Pegau open in the kitchen.
The missus said she needed a cup of wine for cooking and grabbed something that looked like we had in quantity. I’ve cut back on my CdP purchases, so only had three of the '10. Wish she had grabbed one of the many '08’s, or any cheaper wine for that matter.

Could have been worse; I have '98’s, '00’s and '01’s in that row. Next to my CdP rack is a whole row of Allemand. Now that would have been painful.

Beef Stew was good, we’re sipping the Pegau, and all is well. I need to put stickers on some wines for cooking or everyday drinking.

BTW, the Pegau was nice. Much better than the '07 and '09, more restrained and less hot. Soft red and black berries, ripe but not overly; no prunes here. Scant herbal notes, somewhat silky mouthfeel. I would have preferred a little more acidic cut, but just fine, especially for a cooking wine.

Jonathan Favre uses 1990 La Chappelle for making stew.

umm, no joke…last time we were in Tucson he made Beef Bourgignon and used a 98 Dujac MSD. Yeah, just a village wine. Reeeediculous.

Damn good stew by the way.

Gotta put a box of “safe” wine in the cellar for the cook or the cleaning lady to pull from. Of course, any CDP is in the safe category as far as I’m concerned, but that’s another matter.

This reminds me of the time I had to stop my wife from making salad dressing with a 40 year old extravecchio balsamic that I bought from the Rare Wine Co.

Warren, sounds like you need a few “cellar defenders,” ie some cheap wines right in front of everything else, or wherever your wife would see them first.

My wife did something similar Warren. She wanted a bottle to give a friend for helping her carry something. I come in the house and she’s coming upstairs with a bottle of Quilceda Creek - said there were a few and she wanted to give him something cheap to thank him and since there were a few bottles of that, it seemed the one to give. Nice tip I guess.

My solution was to take a bin and put her name on it. Anything from there is fair game any time for anyone. It’s all stuff she likes, so she doesn’t have to stress about accidentally opening something she’s going to hate anyway. And then there are a few cases outside the cellar for cooking, etc.

Anyhow, glad the stew was good!

Every wife or partner needs to have a “safe to drink / cook with rack”. Domestic bliss is a worry free wine rack.

We have a 40 bottle “cellar” under the stairs that contains daily drinkers that are also ok to cook with. The wines in the closet cellar are for drinking only. My wife knows and understands this.

Love that '10 Pegau. Had it at the Domaine earlier this year and it one of the best wines I’ve had this year.

This just goes to show the catastrophe that ensues when we let women choose.

Except when they chose us?

Don’t make rash assumptions

I have a color coding system. But then again, I do most of the cooking.

I saw the title of this thread and knew I didn’t want to click in. That’s an expensive stew, but really it could have been much worse. At least this is a bottle which isn’t difficult to replace.

Anyway, this:

Is brett better in stew than in wine?

there is a great old story from Zachy’s about someone opening bottles of Montrachet or La Tache or some such cherry for the ladies’ bridge club, can’t remember exactly . . .

Haha I remember that one. I think the elder Zacharia had decanted some Petrus from a broken magnum into a couple of generic 750s or jugs that were unwittingly consumed by his wife and some friends.

My wife did this with a 2000 Corton Charley. The worst parts were that it wasn’t premoxed and she used half the bottle. When I called her on it her response was “Well you have thousands of bottles, why the hell would you care if I use just one!”