Cooking Wine!  Take your meals to the next level...

"I love it! I have made Potato dauphinoise with it and it was amazing, you could definitely taste the onion more. I think it would work well with any cream dish with winter veggies. It really lifts it to the next level. I'm keen to try it with carbonara next time.  With veggies such as mushrooms, leaks and beans I used a splash of it and it gave  a very fresh taste with no alcohol taste."  ~Petra

Tasting Notes

Clear, pale yellow.  Smells like a comforting warm onion, as opposed to an eye watering onion.  Taste wise; well, you can taste it if you like, but be prepared, it is strong on the onion and garlic and MADE FOR COOKING not for casual drinking... if you do, you will need mouthwash or parsley afterwards because it has a helluva long finish!  (If there are any naysayers out there thinking right now "if I can't drink it why would I put it in my food?"  I ask you, do you treat yourself to a glass of Worcester sauce now and then?!)

Winemaking Notes

Basically I made a large batch of vegetable stock, heavy on the onions (there is also garlic, carrots, cacao nibs, peppercorns, and herbs from the garden; alexanders, chervil, parsley and greek oregano).  Along with the salt I added sugar, and fermented it until it was done at 12%.  I then aged it with some American oak.

Had a few issues with it wanting to be sparkling, so I did have to add sulphites to calm it down.  

• 12% ABV
• Minimal sulphites
• vegan + gluten free

"As you are one of my many socially responsible and compassionate vegetarian friends, I have done some dirty work for you and tested your lovely onion wine in a lovely beef casserole (so you don't have to).

I was dubious as to whether the subtlety of the wine would stand up against the strong flavour of the beef, but I was pleasantly surprised.

The dish: A beef casserole ( or a 'not enough beef' casserole would be more accurate). About half beef and half veggies, with a concentration of carrots, of which I had far too many perishing at the bottom of the fridge. 

The sauce was simply one onion, loads of carrots, garlic, mushrooms, some herbs, garlic, butter, tomatoes, stock, and a really good slurrop of onion wine.

Well I have to say the onion wine did surprisingly well. The carrot flavour was a little overpowering, but overall the sauce was deelicious.

I found myself ladling it into my mouth well into the evening. 

I do credit the wine with this lift in the general yumminess of the sauce, especially as there were so many carrots and only one poor onion.

The sauce was fresh and light (much more so than if I'd used red wine) and the tomato and carrot flavours were not overshadowed, in a good way. It felt more like a spring dish than a rich wintery one.

Definitely a success. I can vouch for the usefulness in red meat dishes - especially where lots of flavour comes from veg.  Only proviso is I would use more than if paired with lighter flavours."  Sarah