One of the most common ways to use wine in cooking is as a marinade for vegetables, meats, and even cheese. Core components of a marinade include fats, acid, herbs, salt, and spices, and it relatively easy to blend up your own, especially if you want a different flavor profile than what you can buy at the grocery store. The recipe I developed for my initial marinade tests is to use 1 cup of wine, 2 tablespoons of olive oil, 1 teaspoon of salt, 1 teaspoon coarse ground black pepper, 1 teaspoon of rosemary, 1 teaspoon of thyme, ½ teaspoon of garlic power, and ½ teaspoon of cumin. Ingredients were combined in a bowl and whisked together. Marinade was then poured over meat or vegetables, covered, and allowed to sit in the refrigerator for at least four hours before cooking. Generally, these marinades improved the flavor of what I was cooking, but the fruit wine only came through in cases where the wine itself had a strong flavor.
