Any discriminating cardinal would feel right at home with a nice Cabernet.
I’m on the marketing lists of several women’s magazines, and they periodically send emails with teasers from their latest issues. This headline from Cooking Light magazine recently caught my attention:
What To Do With Leftover Wine
Huh? What is this “leftover wine” of which they speak? It’s like they aren’t even talking English.
Why don’t magazines publish articles we can really use? Topics like:
- Driving Miss Daisy…and her open bottle of Pinot Noir. A handy reference guide to open-carry laws by state.
- Dear Ann Landers: A party guest brought a bottle of truly heinous wine as a hostess gift. Should I toss it or save it for a rainy day when I’ve run out of anything decent?
- Personality Quiz: Is the bottle of Merlot half full or half empty? Take this quiz and find out if you’re a pessimist or an optimist.
- Crafter’s Corner: How to hand-crochet lace doilies to cover wine stains on upholstery.
- Ask Miss Manners: If you bring a bottle of wine to a party and the ungrateful hostess doesn’t open it, can you take it back?
- Never let him forget he’s your man: Let your big, strong, stud-muffin open the wine bottle, especially if you’ve got one of those cheapo corkscrews that make it damn near impossible.
- 4th of July decorating tips: Kick it up a notch this Independence Day. Guests will marvel at your holiday tablescape when you add Gik, the first blue wine developed in Spain, to your usual roster of reds and whites.
- Save the Planet: Do you love animals? Into recycling? Overrun with empties from your favorite Box ‘O Wine? Check out our step-by-step instructions for turning cardboard wine boxes into charming birdhouses for our feathered-friends. The rules say it’s white wine with fowl, but think outside the box and go for red!
In case you’re wondering, this was the magazine’s tip for using up leftover wine:
“Have a bottle of wine that you just can’t finish up, and don’t want to waste the little bit left over? Pour the wine into ice-cube trays, and freeze. Pull out a few cubes for a pan sauce that needs oomph, or toss some into a wine spritzer or pitcher of sangria.”
I’m planning to try this clever idea as soon as possible. Does anyone know where I can get some leftover wine?
Peg-o-Leg's Ramblings 
You need some leftover wine? That’s easy – open a new bottle, and use half to make frozen wine cubes for use in sangria. Now you have half a bottle of leftover wine – and you can celebrate it by drinking it!
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But then what do I do when I have a pan sauce that needs oomph?
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But you already have the oomph cubes made with the first half of the bottle.
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But I already used them up on the Sangria??? Maybe I better buy a couple of bottles, get rid of all the water ice cubes in my freezer, and fill them with wine. Then I’ll drink half a bottle while cooking so I can get soused while I get sauced.
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This is all beginning to sound strangely like that kid’s song “There’s a hole in my bucket…”
Bet one of those magazines has an article about fixing bucket holes – or hang it in a tree and filling it up with water to be used as an outdoor cooling station to entertain those charming rosy cheeked little children
Pass the wine.
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More wine will make all these pesky logic problems magically float away.
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The beauty of the wine box is that the bag bladder can literally be sucked dry. (It would be safe to conclude I’ve done this…want to make sure the #4 bag is completely clean for recycling!) As for the box, it feeds the garden worms. They feel positively posh when I throw them a chillable red box versus a white zin, though they tell me the taste difference is negligible. It all gets nom-nommed the same.
Happy summering, Peg!
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Ha! I love how you think, Shannon. I bet your garden is fabulous by now. Have a great summer yourself.
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My husband once accidentally froze a bottle of good white wine. The next time I was at the wine store, I asked the proprietor what can be done with it. “Third bottle” was her comment, “after everybody has had a lot of the first two.” I’m sure you can use your “leftover wine” similarly.
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That’s a fabulous idea, except sometimes it’s so bad you can’t use it. I’m at that point with a red that I thought looked good so I bought 4 bottles. I can’t bring myself to even cook with it, it’s so horrible. The open bottle has been sitting on the counter for 6 months and the other 3 bottles are taking up valuable real estate.
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Going to visit someone you don’t like?
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I’m considering the next time I’m asked to donate to a charity auction. Would it be so bad? Maybe the purchaser of that basket would LIKE horrible wine.
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Any need for a Molotov cocktail in your neighborhood? One that fizz bangs just enough to scare truly terrible neighbors. . .
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Is wine flammable? Gotta stop storing my casks of wine near the furnace.
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No, wine cannot be used for a big bang. Wine hasn’t enough alcohol. You need about 40 % of alcohol, preferably more, to get the flame going.
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I don’t think you need to worry about your wine. It’s kind of like flaming brandy for plum pudding. You can pour the brandy in a puddle on the pudding and grow old trying to light it. If you heat the brandy first then touch a match to the fumes above the brandy it flames immediately. Ditto with wine but less flame because of lower alcohol content. Your stored bottles are fine.
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I tricked you – ha! I never leave wine around long enough to be considered “stored.”
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Got Me!
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Ever heard of red-wine-cake?
http://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/chocolate-red-wine-cake
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That looks fabulous – thank for the link! Seriously, I think I’ll give it a try.
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I have had a similar cake with chocolate chips inside – and that was very tasty. It’s not as if the wine dominates the cake, it just adds some depth, some acid (not too much) and brings out the chocolate taste even more.
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All good advice, Peg. Too bad I don’t have any leftover wine, either. Guess it would help if I actually drank wine. I’ll get back to you after I do some field research – all in the name of helping you out 🙂
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I appreciate the sacrifice. How about beer cubes? Wouldn’t that be a great way to make sure your beer stays cold?
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I’ve seen several iterations of the ice cube tip and am always mystified by their wording. Never has consuming a bottle of wine proved as arduous a task as these articles make out; at least, not in my experience. Then again, I would most likely sooner finish a bottle out of sheer spite than put it to any culinary use – I consider it something of a crime whenever a recipe dares to suggest I waste perfectly good wine on a sauce or whatnot instead of pouring it directly down my throat – so perhaps I’m a tad biased.
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I never would have thought so, either. Bus as mentioned elsewhere, I have most of a bottle of a very bad red sitting on my counter because I don’t want to drink it, and it seems sacrilegious to toss it. I’m going to try a red wine/chocolate cake recipe – doesn’t that sound good?
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“Where does one find left-over wine” you ask? My favorite source is corporate office and holiday parties. Often you get your choice of several varieties (white-wine ice cubes are a great addition to chicken dishes!). Or if you’re really adventurous, you can just dump all of the remnants into a bucket and make yourself a wine wapatui. 🙂
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I don’t work for a corporation and I’m rarely invited to parties. Do you think it would be a problem if I started crashing other people’s events?
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Not at all! I’m never on the guest list, either. Just wait until 8 or so — when everyone’s on their third drink — and act all nonchalant-like, as if you’re simply tidying up.
By the way: I forgot to mention in my previous comment that YOU ARE HILARIOUS.
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This was hilarious, Peg, but in case you’re sincere about needing leftover wine, may I refer you to a scene in the movie “Sideways” where the antagonist drinks from the sampling discards in the big pot. Perhaps you can arrange a “quid pro quo” with a local winery. You get the leftovers…..they get more exposure when you serve it to your friends. Just a thought……
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That’s not the pot where they spit out the wine, is it? EWWWWW!
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You just said leftover. You said nothing about previously tasted.
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With three boys in my house, I constantly have leftover whine.
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Bwahaha! I bet you do, but not as much as if you had 3 girls. 🙂
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But isn’t that leftover pro-secco?
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It’s like being faced with the dilemma of what to do with leftover chocolate. No one in a bazillion years is ever going to have either of these problems (leftover wine or chocolate). Who gets paid to think of these ideas, anyhow?? 😉
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Not me, that’s for sure. Which I can’t understand because my ideas are INFINITELY better. Just ask me.
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I hope Ann Landers doesn’t recommend tossing that bottle of wine. You need to have an emergency stash for any event. Merlot = family visiting. Chardonnay = customer service hell. Chablis = boss stark raving mad.
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White with fish and red with beef is so passe. Now you need a variety for each of life’s events…and yours are genius!
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Ok, was I the only fool who actually clicked on the Gik link? I so wanted to find out where to buy blue wine. But it’s probably just as well – my reds and whites are pretty much gone.
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I had seen the headline in a paper about the blue wine – so I could resist the link.
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Why, what’s wrong with it? Did I miss something?
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https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2016/jun/28/gik-live-blue-wine-curacao-vodka-gin-pigmented-psychology
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The only reason my wife and I throw a party (which is rare, because hell is other people) is because our wine stocks are low. Everyone brings a bottle and we throw everyone out before there’s time enough to drink it all. Voilà! Replenished stocks.
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I like how you think, except you’re bound to attract people like me who only show up so we can unload the heinous bottles we don’t want to drink. Maybe you run with a classier crowd, though.
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Low standards: the perfect remedy, not only for bad wine, but for life itself.
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Proper guest etiquette demands that the spiller suck the sofa arm immediately upon spilling. Savvy hostesses only buy wine-colored furniture in the first place.
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Good point. I’ll get one burgundy and one white sofa, then direct my guests according to their preferences. Good thing I already own a vomit-colored sofa.
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I’d say begin publishing your own magazine, but something tells me 2016 isn’t the ideal time to start such a capitalist adventure. As much I love your article ideas, I can’t help you find leftover wine. I can, however, ensure leftover wine never darkens your door.
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Hey, John, how’ve you been? Thanks for sparing me the hell of having leftover wine. Appreciate that.
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I’m good, thanks. I think I’ve rediscovered my blog under these piles of paper!
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Bad wine? Use for cooking, there is no such thing as bad wine when cooking
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OK, I’m going to do that. I’ve got most of a bottle of bad wine sitting on my counter, so I’m going to try red wine chocolate cake.
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