Beef Bourguingnon

[StuffezLaBouche]

Hi all,
I've got 5 friends coming round for NYE and have decided to do a proper meal to line our stomachs to be civilised. I am planning on Beef Bourguignon for the main (leek and potato soup for starter with home made, cheese topped roll, pudding to be sorted by friend I hope!)

Anyway, the only Burgundy wine for the beef that Tesco had was £7 and the miser in me could not buy a £7 bottle of wine to glug into food. I have bought instead a Tempranillo which was half price at £4....will this be ok do you think? If not I will get the Burgundy.

I am so desperate for this meal to go well and one of my guests is a REALLY picky eater!

The adage about 'garbage in, garbage out' applies to the wine you put in cooking. So a cheap red if it's too feeble, too acidic or too strong on the tannin might spoil the flavour of your finished dish. Having said that, you don't have to be a stickler and insist on a Burgundy... any reasonable quality red wine will do the trick.

Just seen your Tempranillo started life at £8... in which case it's probably OK. Taste first!

Will definitely taste it first to make sure. I would never put really crap wine in as I have visions of guests trying to politely force down my inedible slop...!

BTW... really picky guests should have the good manners to appreciate whatever you serve up and not make you feel inadequate. :)

Shouldn't they just? Well he's just replied to my FB invite with the words, "please don't serve roadkill" in reference to a time when I once fed him a pheasant casserole. I may kill him.

Why would you want to be friends with a tosser like that?

Oh he's really not! We are both horrid to each other but we really are very good friends. (And I may have accused him of serving fish tank gravel when he gave me Ainsley Harriot cous cous.)
Rather than our usual immaturity I just thought it would be nice to have a group of old uni friends for a decent meal :)