Cooking with Wine
August 17, 2009
•Brian Brooks
•San Francisco
• 0 Comments
There are few better places in the world to learn how to
cook with wine than the San Francisco Bay area. The Sonoma and Napa Valleys are
world-renowned for their rich and fertile soils that produce some of the best
wine making grapes on earth. California is the world’s fourth largest wine
producer, accounting for nearly 90 percent of American wine production. The
history of wine making in California dates back to 17
th century
Spanish monks who planted vineyards to produce wine for mass.
With all that fine wine and its rich heritage, it’s no
wonder California chefs make it a staple in their cooking. Whether as a perfect
companion to a meal or a featured ingredient in an entree, wine plays a central
part in many international cuisines. The most famous of all is French, but wine
is also predominant in Spanish, Italian, and Greek cuisines. Thanks to our
globalized society, even Asian cuisines are starting to add wine to their own
rich culinary traditions.
California Wine, Food, and Culture
Cooking with wine is a tradition that may owe its origins to
French cuisine, but San Francisco chefs know a thing or two about cooking with
wine as well. Chefs in this cosmopolitan city use classical French cooking techniques
combined with the latest modern techniques to express their creativity in the kitchen.
And while we are all familiar with the question of what wine
we should serve with dinner; we often overlook what wine we should serve in
dinner. Wine is a complex beverage and its use in cooking has many
implications. As the alcohol evaporates with cooking, the wine flavor will
concentrate and create either subtle or bold flavor profiles. A good rule is to
cook with a wine that is also good to drink.
Up and coming San Francisco personal chefs can learn about
wine by purchasing an extra bottle of wine to be served with dinner and using
it to put in some of the dishes being served for dinner. After some
experimentation like this you will learn when to use a burgundy for boldness, a
zinfandel for subtle sweetness, or a chardonnay for a buttery smoothness.
From light white wine sautés to rich and textured burgundy
sauces to red wine reductions to poaching in port wine, there are many
opportunities to sample dishes flavored with wines in the Bay area. Although
you obviously can’t drink our famous California wines until you are 21 years of
age, that doesn’t mean that you can’t learn to prepare and enjoy the many fine
dishes prepared with Northern California’s most famous libation.
As you can see, if you are looking to expand your culinary
repertoire to include wine, there is no better place to learn than in
California. In addition to being home to some of the best vineyards, Northern
California boasts some of the best cooking schools in the country to help teach
you how to begin your adventures with wine in the Kitchen.
This article is presented by The California Culinary
Academy. The California Culinary Academy offers Le Cordon Bleu culinary
education classes and culinary training programs in San Francisco, California.
To learn more about the class offerings, please visit Chefs.edu/San-Francisco for more information.
The jobs mentioned are examples of certain potential jobs,
not a representation that these outcomes are more probable than others. The
California Culinary Academy does not guarantee employment or salary.