Yes. It can be frozen...you can even make ice cubes with it.

Yes. I divide it into liquid cup fulls and pour each cup into a separate ziplock and freeze it.

Whether it's possible or not possible, this has to be an example of the usually negative consequences of freezing things. Wine has subtle flavors and aromas. I can't believe they would survive a freeze/defrost cycle.

The only exceptions to me are items commercially processed - flash frozen freshly caught seafood and freshly harvested veggies. Other small exceptions - I do like the Trident brand frozen Alaskan salmon burgers that Costco sells. But they're frozen at the processing center, immediately after being made.

I’ve never frozen wine but am thinking it would likely alter the flavor some. As mentioned here, freezing it in small portions should be okay for cooking purposes rather than drinking.

If you don’t drink wine but occasionally need it for cooking, many liquor stores sell the mini/airplane bottles of wine and other liquor.

So if you are making a stew just for the family, a cup or so of frozen wine will do? For my ”busy day” stew that may have this or that and use up vegetables etc, frozen wine will provide the bit of liquid with a hint of the wine? It’s just one more ”leftover” to add in, sounds good to me.

Thanks all, great to know I can freeze it. I like to use it especially for beef stew.

I often freeze left over wine and use it in sauces, soups. I don't know that I'd offer it to someone to drink from a glass but I've certainly cooked with it with no complaints.

It will be fine for cooking. None of the subtle notes of wine survive cooking anyway. It will add color and flavor and liquid to your dish.

I agree, Olychick, and I suspect that heat from cooking would more damaging to what makes good wine good than freezing would be.

There are lots of discussions about cooking wines from reputable sources to be found online. They don’t always agree across the board. Some will say an oaky, tanniny cab is ok, others will say these attributes develop off flavors when cooking. Most sources will caution against very cheap wines which tend to be too sweet, almost all will say that spending more than about $15-20 max on “good” wine isn’t likely to improve a dish much.

Some time ago I read that ATK/CI found that the difference between barely simmering wine or letting it come to a boil made so much of s difference that it tasted like completely different wine. On their recommendation I tried a Côtes du Rhône and kept the temperatire down. I especially liked the results relative to those past, and this has been my go-to combination ever since for most red wine applications.

I’d recommend a bit of reading, for anyone stressing about choosing the right wines. You don’t have to get too deep.

I have no reason to think Jacques Pepin would cook with something he wouldn’t drink.

“I am not a snob about wine, you know. I usually buy a bottle under $10 or whatever, if you know what to buy.” - JP

https://winecurmudgeon.com/jacques-pepin-you-dont-need-to-spend-more-than-10-for-wine

So there's what you would serve and what I would serve and what that guy would serve. My father was a wine snob and spoiled me for accepting the cheap wine of youth (ICK!). Kept me out of trouble. And I agree than tannic wines are ruined in the cooking, and so's the food! But carppy wine makes carppy food, as well. I'm not talking snob here, but I do have a better tasting ability than many others, as in can taste things they don't, and I've experienced what the wrong wines can do.

Rather than talking about what you'd serve, the saying should be that the wine should be palatable and refreshing, not harsh or full of character. Awhile back--before the pandemic--I had good luck with specials from Whole Foods. Often there were pretty accurate descriptions on the display cards. Generally, perfectly acceptable wines from small wineries sold at introductory or loss leader prices. I marked them with a C, to Cook with, and had a good taste before I actually used one. But then they started selling varietal Two Buck Chuck. TBC wines, if I understand correctly, are made from "wine lake", the many tanker trucks full, sold by growers. What TJ's save on growing, they make up for with excellent vintners who blend the wines to taste good. Nothing special, nothing challenging or interesting, no terroir, tastes like the variety it's supposed to be, and easy on the palate. Goes down easier than grape juice (which is too sweet). It cooks just fine as a braise baste or acidifier.

Where you need a good wine is if you're doing a reduction. All the faults will reduce and intensify and grow grow grow more than the good attributes. It seems a shame to a lot of people to reduce a bottle of expensive wine to a cup of syrup, but TWC will turn to cough syrup. I will serve (California prices) a moderate bottle of wine that's quite nice, but would never make a good reduction.

I found FOAS's experience with freezing wine interesting. I've never thought of it. I save what's left in bottles of wines which could be good cooking using vacuum corks, on the counter. They lose a bit, but like the frozen ones have been described, they still cook well, for a splash here and there. For a braise or sauce, I'll open a bottle, however, even if it's just TBC.

Really, just taste it before adding it to the food. If if tastes nice, use it!

“Did I mention anything about cost?”

Why yes, right in your opening premise:

“Q- "Is it okay to use inexpensive wine for cooking, since it's just going to be blending into the food?

A- No.”

I said I don’t drink. When I did drink I enjoyed wine, though it was never my biggest alcohol vice. I don’t claim any expertise, and I’m not sure that this matters. Most anyone who drinks wine would have different ideas of what they “would drink” or what they “would enjoy.”

These terms are about as subjective as it comes, to the point of being meaningless. I highly doubt any wine that someone would enjoy would suddenly become undrinkable from freezing. Loss of quality, sure. Turn bad, no. Serious Eats’ David Gritzer suggests that even old wine gone bad can have good results in cooking as the off flavors cook off, but advises caution with that. I’ll take his word for that one.

I never suggested using bad wine. I’d not use bad wine, but to your point I’d not intentionally use bad anything in my cooking. Some ingredients that are slightly below their prime but still fine, sure.

So let me ask you, what specifically have I posted to this point that you disagree with? Let’s narrow this down.

FOAS, re the old wine. My father had laid in an exquisite red (I don't remember the details) which only got better in the bottle. Then something happened and the last couple got warm. It turned. But while there was some vinegar going on, one could still taste the characteristics of the beauty of that wine underneath. My mother used it on a large leg of lamb in one of those recipes where you have to baste every 15 minutes for 3 hours. (Guess whose job that was? ;) ) The result was amazing.

There used to be a radio wine journalist on KCBS radio in San Francisco who recommended freezing leftover wine that couldn't be used soon. I did it once when we were going on vacation and had an opened bottle I didn't want to waste. As I remember, it tasted fine when I defrosted it in the refrigerator after the vacation.

For drinking, absolutely not but for cooking, then if it's a recipe with a relatively small squirt, yes. For something like a Bourguignon, no but then you'd be using the whole bottle anyway so it doesn't enter into the equation.

Leftover wine?

Elmer, a squirt can be for a gravy or a dash of wine in a braising liquid too. Not being a fan of red wine jus where the wine is reduced again and again, I like to use just a little and often prefer white over red along with a beef stock.

A few of Elmer’s posts that I was responding to above are missing. There was nothing objectionable in them to make anyone flag them, let alone the two people required ro make them disappear. Weird.

Just pointing it out in case anyone wonders why I randomly started talking about Jacques Pepin, or where my quotes came from.

For cooking, keep a box wine in the refrigerator. The bag inside the box shrinks as the wine is dispensed and thus no air enters, no air no oxidization. Plus you now have Emergency Wine.

I use "leftover" wine to make wine jelly. Add enough sugar, and even a cheap wine makes yummy jelly.

"Emergency Wine"

" For cooking, keep a box wine in the refrigerator "

A search discloses that the "shelf life" of opened box wine in the fridge is limited to several weeks. You're going to go through the equivalent of 4 bottles of wine before it starts to spoil? I suspect other choices would be more suitable.

Also, I can only wonder what changes being stored in a fridge (with sub-40° temperatures) will result with red wine. It can't be anything positive. It's never intentionally exposed to such temperatures otherwise.

“Also, I can only wonder what changes being stored in a fridge (with sub-40° temperatures) will result with red wine. It can't be anything positive. It's never intentionally exposed to such temperatures otherwise.”

Elmwr - Both Wine Enthusiast and Wine Spectator recommend storing opened red wine in the fridge. Here’s a reaponse from Wine Spectator specific to boxed wine:

Box wines are a fast -growing category—there are many more options out there than ever before, and many of very good quality. I’m glad you’re exploring them.

Once you open a traditional bag-in-box wine or one packaged in a Tetra Pak , I recommend storing it in your fridge, just as I would with an open bottle of wine—no matter if it’s red, white, pink or sparkling. That should slow down the process of making a wine’s flavors start to fade and take on nutty, oxidized notes. The way bag-in-box wines are designed, the bag inside will collapse as the wine is poured, which is a neat way to minimize the wine’s exposure to oxygen. Even so, we’ve done some tests of box wines in our offices and recommend enjoying them within two to three weeks of opening.

That’s just our recommendation. You might find the wine still enjoyable a month down the line or more. That change that occurs over time is due to oxygen exposure, and it isn’t harmful. Oxidized wine won’t make you sick, it'll just taste less fresh.

Something to note about box wines is that they have a limited shelf life even before they are opened. Those bags are semi-permeable, and will let in air over time. Keep an eye on the "best-by" date when shopping for boxed wines—they usually suggest consuming the wine within a year to 18 months from the production date.

https://www.winespectator.com/articles/how-long-does-box-wine-stay-fresh-55434

They make small boxed wines! Don't want to take up fridge space with the tailgater jumbo special anyway.

The wine snob taught me to store opened wine in the fridge, preferably with a vacuum cork, gas replacement, or some other way of reducing the oxygen. I've read that box wine works well because of the shrinking bladder and valve, for people who want to drink a glass a day, and it may be my imagination that it smells like vinyl. There are some palatable ones, so I'm told, though I don't drink (nor my household) for the alcohol content and wouldn't give fridge space to it even if it were excellent.

For a splash while cooking, however, I find well stoppered wine will keep on my counter, in my warm kitchen, for months, without becoming unpalatable, so I only vacuum and chill opened wines which we'll want to drink again on the morrow, and I'll start an opened bottle saved for cooking on the counter with vacuum, but after about a week, I figure it's on its way to perdition and just replace the stopper without vacuum. Of course I do a tiny taste before using, but I've never had a good wine turn bad that way. It just gets dull, which is fine for deglazing the pan, or acidifying. You're destroying the character with heat anyway, so if it's already gone, no biggie.

“food, my comment comes from personal experiences, not from internet searches.”

Sorry if I misinterpreted your prior posts which were worded quite cleaely as assumptions, not experience:

“I can't believe they would survive a freeze/defrost cycle.”

“Also, I can only wonder what changes being stored in a fridge (with sub-40° temperatures) will result with red wine. It can't be anything positive.”

Personally, I’d leave a bottle of red on the counter also, vacuum drawn (if I could find it), if I were drinking it the next day. If only to have it ready at the desired temperature.

But I think it’s important to comsider the context of the conversation We’re talking about saving some wine for cooking, a process that by itself destroys much of the nuance of the wine. Surely worlds closrer to Jacques Pepin’s $10 house wine than a bottle of Opus One. Throwing a cup into our ragu, not comparing notes in a Napa Valley tasting room.

It wasn’t a stretch, Elmer, you very clearly stated them as if assumptions. If your experience is that you don’t like wine after it’s been refrigerated, fine, good for you, I believe you but don’t care. My own experience happens to have agreed with authorities on the subject, to the extent I noticed the difference. That shouldn’t feel confrontational to you if yoiu are confident in your preferences. Relax.

No I don’t drink wine but I did. Never aspired to be an aficionado by any stretch but put wine to my lips and I knew what I liked and didn’t like.

I do still cook with wine, and my experiences have led me to know what reds I don’t care for in my cooking, in any notable quantity. And for me, using frozen wine is absolutely fine. And I’m quite sure it’d be fine for anyone with a less than highly refined palate.

That’s the topic at hand. This ia a cooking forum, not a wine snob forum. Go elsewhere if you want a better shot at impressing someone.

Just stop before you reflect baxk and decide you need to delete comments.

Elmer, you're a great one for making assumptions.

I do love red wine and have drunk a wide variety in my lifetime.

I'm not a fan of red wine jus.

You can't compare the flavour of a wine and a gravy.

If you can, then it says more about your tastebuds than mine LOL

Of course you do.

This is why I abandoned the thread. The mansplainer is ALWAYS right.

"but I'm often amazed by the doubt and sometimes incredulity some of my comments trigger, quite different from what my reaction would be if the tables were reversed and I were reading the same words from someone else."

Elmer, it might occur to you to question your own opinions. I have strong opinions - as you all know - but if I'm told off, then I question myself. But you just keep on insisting you're right. We ALL have life experience - some talk about it more than others.stop being such a pompous twit and get over yourself.