7 need-to-know tips for cooking with wine

Here's how to use the fruit of the vine to enhance the flavours in the dishes you cook

1. Don’t settle for an inferior-quality wine — one that is not suitable for drinking is no good for cooking either. If a recipe does not specify what type of wine to use, it would traditionally be a dry to medium wine.

2. To avoid that raw-wine taste in cooked dishes, wine needs to be reduced during cooking for a pleasantly mellow flavour.

3. The rule of thumb when cooking is that white wine is for light-coloured dishes and reds are for darker, bolder dishes. Remember, though, that rules are made to be broken (just try this tasty recipe for chicken with red wine & grapes).

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3. Red-wine marinades tenderise and add flavour to meat, but can also dominate. Try the same recipe using white wine.

4. Sweet fortified wines like sherry and marsala  are excellent for deglazing the pan and adding rich flavour.

5. If wine is to be added to dishes that contain large quantities of dairy, such as cream or yoghurt, there is a chance that the dairy will curdle, so it’s best to add the wine to the dish first and cook it down before adding the dairy products.

6. Wine's flavour can be intensified and enriched by first reducing it before adding it to dish. To do so, bring it to a rolling boil in a pot and cook until reduced by half.

7. If you want to avoid alcohol, wine in a recipe can be replaced with an equivalent quantity of fruit juice — such as red or white grape juice — or even stock.