wine suggestions?

[Sabrinah]

I'm always reading this board and I've gotten great ideas/inputs so I hope you can help me with this one. I'm not a wine drinker so I don't know anything about wines. I need some suggestions on what specific wines to use when a recipe calls for dry red wine or dry white wines. I'm sure there are wines of all kinds out there (which confuses the heck out of me) so please be specific with the wine names. Thanks! This is a great board and I hope to post more often (as soon as my two toddlers stop hogging up the computer!).

[Ralph]

Welcome, Sabrina!
I'm assuming you mean the wines used as PART of the recipe, not to drink alongside your meal. If that's the case, here a two suggestions. ANY generic, inexpensive white (i.e. Chablis, Rhine) or red (i.e. Merlot) are fine; these are usually sold in the larger bottles or jugs (Almaden, Inglenook, Gallo). Under no circumstances should you use the stuff at the store LABLED cooking wine (it's not worth it!).
Second suggestion: Click "Search" on the bulletin board & enter "wine" in the "search field." There were a couple of threads on just this subject a few weeks ago.

[emilycat]

I second Ralph's warning: definitely don't buy cooking wine...ewww. Usually, if you're just going to be cooking with the wine, any well-reputed large vineyard will do; don't waste your money on a $15 or even $10 bottle if you'll just be cooking with it. If you're going to have, say, 1/2 a bottle left over, I'd suggest you take a look at Wine Spectator's site; they have lists of the "best bang for your buck" (actually, I believe they're just called "best value," but I like that phrase http://www.cookinglight.com/bbs/smile.gif ) wines under $10, which will be great in a dish, and you'll enjoy drinking it as well. If you can't find the lists on the site, I'd be glad to post some from my print magazine.
Em