Best Cooking Wine?

Just wondering.

woof.

Erm, cooking what exactly?

Just wondering...

you just couldn't do it to an '83 or even a '95 come to that. a burgundy tends to do it for me, about 6 odd euros a bottle. in one of my beef casseroles, a casa grazzenger speciality. mmm, beef casserole. think i should open a wee restaurant called stew-topia.

The Rothschild 83 was not even that good. I thought the 85 petite Rothschild was actually a better wine, and it was only going for about 6 quid a bottle when it was on general sale.

never tried it but just know that '83 was a pretty stunning year and i couldn't do such a thing with a 22 year old wine. speaking of which i have a bottle of '85 bordeaux in the cellar which a friend (from bordeaux) gave my wife and i on our engagement and told us to wait until it was 20 years old. now i can't bring my self to open it. what would go best with a wine such as this as it's way beyond my experience?

I cetainly could. Better the wine, better the sauce.

As to the 85, I always thought it was a year best drunk relatively young? No doubt I'm very wrong, but winegirl is not here right now to put us all right, and I cannot be arsed to google and pretend I'm a font of knowledge.

I say cook with it. I mean c'mon, you only need a glass or two to spark up a sauce - Don't use a whole bottle on a mariande or nothing silly. Just reduce down a couple of glasses until its about a teaspoon of treacly smeg - then add it to some reduced stock, and you have the basis for a simple, but ace, sauce for something simple and ace - bit of decent beef.

Enjoy the wine, good luck finding the decent beef. Until the German palette evolves beyond schnitzel and wurst, we are all doomed on that front.