With a little imagination, a less than wonderful bottle can be given an impressive makeover, writes Ed Charles.
NOW the party season is over, it’s time to count the leftovers as well as the empties. If you have so-called friends like mine you’ll be wondering what to do with all those crappy bottles of wine left behind – the same ones you left at their places the previous summer.
With interest rates on the rise and economists yet to decide whether or not we can afford to step up from cask wine to posh bottled stuff again, it may be time to put these dubious bottles of alcohol to work, rather than passing them on in the endless game of wine tag or donating them to charity.
Enter the wine hacker – the person who can transform something substandard into something quite drinkable with nothing more than the contents of your pantry or fridge.
The term hacking, first coined by computer programmers for the neat tricks and shortcuts they developed on computers, is now applied to all areas of life from storage to laundry and even food and drink.
All it takes is a bit of ingenuity, a head for experimentation and some fruit juice or soft drink to help you along.
The only rule is to hide the evidence from wine snobs. Do try this at home.
HACK 1 Overbearing, sweet reds
The wine dweebs will hate you for it. But let’s face it – that bottle of high-alcohol shiraz, although technically near perfect, is undrinkable.
The answer is simply to add water, as is done at the table in France and Italy – they’ve been drinking wine this way for thousands of years. Not only will you discover delicate notes to this once ockerish, monstrous wine, but you’ll be able to taste whatever you are eating with it.
Or try adding lemonade to red wine (soda if it’s sweet), or brandy and fruit to make a sangria, surely a fashionable summer refresher with its Spanish origins.
Alternatively, Coca-Cola (think brown lemonade) is also an excellent addition to a high-alcohol red, adding some sugar and diluting the alcohol to make an alternative sangria. Add ice cubes at will. Just don’t order it at the bar.
HACK 2 Perfumed whites
One man’s Marlborough sauvignon blanc is another man’s over-oaked chardonnay. Although you may not want to drink, or at least admit to drinking, New Zealand sauvignon blanc, it is Australia’s favourite white wine, with its nose of tropical fruit not dissimilar to much-lauded – in beauty rather than wine circles – Pantene shampoo. The solution with these wines is that their sweet-like fruit flavours are easily counter-played by some lemon (acid) and soda. Tumble in a couple of cubes of ice and serve as a refreshing spritzer that even the stuffiest of wine snobs couldn’t resist on a hot summer’s evening.
HACK 3 Sparkling whites
There are many sins that come with bubbles from the oversweet to the acid, and I’m especially thinking of the sub-$10 prosecco.
The best solution is to hack to the classics such as the buck’s fizz (known as a mimosa in the US) with the addition of an equal splash of orange juice to fizz. Peach juice (or apricot) isn’t as sharp as orange and can transform the worst offenders into a delicious bellini for your very own Roman Holiday.
An alternative is the kir royale with the addition of creme de cassis (blackcurrant) liqueur which, of course, itself can be hacked by replacing it with Ribena or a similar blackcurrant concentrate.
HACK 4 Sparkling shiraz
While the recent history of Australian drinking is sticky with the after-party of sparkling shiraz, the combination of bubbles and red wine is still freaky for many palates.
The only solution is a radical hack – the addition of Campari, orange juice, soda and ice in a tall glass. There is a precedent for bitter aperitif and sparkling wine, the Austrian spritzer or spritz which mixes prosecco, Aperol, sparkling water and either a slice of orange or an olive.
HACK 5 Over-oaked chardonnay
There really is little to recommend over-oaked chardonnay, with its nose of freshly sawn decking timber. But there is something to learn from French peasants by adding creme de cassis (see Hack 4). Either that or lay down this wine and avoid it. Some wines deserve nothing more than constant regifting.
HACK 6 Acidic riesling
My rule about mixing Mylanta and wine also applies to the more palatable Zantac, which rules out drinking many limy, over-acidified South Australian rieslings. Again the solution here is a radical one, a hack that blends well to citrus acids – the addition of ginger beer.
HACK 7 Pan it
Finally, there are the wines that simply are flawed, the worst offender being corked. You will recognise corked wine because it smells like wet newspaper soaking up puppy pee. There are only two options here: remove the offending odour or cook with it.
Cling film turns out to be excellent for removing the chemicals that taints corked wine. Simply pour the wine into a wide, shallow bowl and stuff in as much of the film as you can. The offending molecule, known as 2,4,6-trichloroanisole or TCA, is similar to the polyethylene in the wrap and will stick to it. Simply wring out the wrap and return the wine to the bottle.
The final solution is to cook with the offending wine.
Ed Charles is a Melbourne journalist and food blogger.