What are the Best White Wines for Cooking?

The addition of white wine in your cooking can create fantastic depths of flavor in your dishes. But, when it comes to cooking with wine it’s important to choose your bottle carefully, as each bottle offers something unique and different. So, before you get started, let’s take a look at some of the best white wines to use in your cooking, and what dishes they can enhance!

Cricova Chardonnay

Chardonnay is an easy go-to wine to use in your cooking. You’ll want to choose one with at least 11% alcohol content and a good amount of acidity – these characteristics help the wine to reduce, and some acidity helps provide the bright and bold taste you want from cooking with wine. Chardonnay is a wonderful addition to shellfish, fish, chicken or pasta dishes.

Cricova Chardonnay itself has a rich, bold, harmonious flavor. It also has an alcohol content of 12% and a generous acidity, making it the perfect wine to cook with.

Taylor Wine Company Dry Sherry

A quick dash of a nice dry sherry can seriously enhance the flavors in your recipes, namely beef stroganoff, French onion soup and cream-based soups. It brightens up the flavors already in the dish, adding a deeper layer to the overall taste. It’s always a good idea to keep a bottle in the kitchen!

The Taylor Wine Company brand produces an extraordinary dry sherry that is classically-styled with notes of roasted nuts – a great choice to have in the kitchen.

Florio Marsala

Marsala is a nice wine to use for cooking, as it has a unique caramel flavor that distinguishes it from other wines. A tip for cooking with Marsala wine: be sure to cook it for a decent amount of time, as it’s common to end up with a little too much alcohol in your dish when cooking with this wine for the first time! Marsala wine pairs nicely with a butter sauce, mushrooms and summer berries, especially strawberries.

Florio Marsala is grown in a warm, mineral-rich soil by the sea in Italy. This ideal climate creates a strong and bold wine that will stand out in your cooking and add endless flavor.

Dark Horse California Sauvignon Blanc

This sauvignon blanc is exceptional when used in risotto, fish, vegetables and even fondue. It’s a crisp, aromatic wine with citrus and grassy flavors, and is great in almost any dish! It has a refreshing flavor, high acidity and low amounts of sugar, making it an easy addition to whatever you’re preparing.

This Dark Horse brand, with its citrus and melon flavors, adds a crisp, bold and earthy flavor to your cooking, enhancing it into something you’ve never tasted before.

Barefoot Extra Dry Champagne

Champagne may be the most shocking item on this list, but it’s not just for celebrations. Champagne is excellent served alongside fish, but even more delicious when used to create a champagne butter sauce to serve over fish. The bright, sparkling flavor matches very well with the fat in butter, and when paired with an also-fatty fish, you have a delightfully rich meal with plenty of depth.

Barefoot’s champagne has a crisp, refreshing flavor and a creamy finish, making it just bold enough to be the perfect addition to your cooking. Just be sure you use the champagne right after opening it, because the loss of bubbles and flavor as it sits over days will not make for a great sauce.

More Tips About White Wines for Cooking

As a general rule, it’s best to avoid wines that are labeled as cooking wines, as strange as it may seem! These wines typically have added ingredients, including salt, that make for a less genuine taste, so opt for purchasing real wine to avoid artificial flavors. Medium-bodied white wines are your best bet, and can easily take your dishes from good to great.

White wines are delicious when used for chicken, fish, veggie and even dessert dishes, there is almost no dish that can’t be enhanced with a dash of bright white wine.