Best wine for turkey/chicken gravy?

We decided to order a smoked turkey for T-Day, but we've still got to make some gravy to go with the bird. I was planning to buy some chicken wings (and/or turkey wings), roast them, and make a stock out of them for the gravy.

That part's fine, but I know that a good bird gravy will call for wine to deglaze the roasting/browning pan. So here's my question: which type/make/cost of wine is best? I've heard both Champagne and Chardonnays work well for this kind of gravy, but I'm not completely sure. Also, I'm not really a drinking man, so the old adage "Don't cook with a wine you wouldn't drink" doesn't help me a whole lot.

I was planning to drop $20-30 on a bottle of some kind of white wine or Champagne at Costco. Is that too much? Too little? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

A dry sherry that you would actually want to drink: maybe a manzanilla or fino from Gitana or Lustau. Cheaper than what you are talking about.

Wine in gravy? I don't think so. You simply deglaze the roasting pan with stock or water and then thicken. Once you start adding wine or other cityfied notions to your pan drippings, you begin to morph into gravy's city cousin...sauce.

Sort of like adding cream to your spaghetti carbonara. ( Antonious...that was for you)

I don't disagree, but the OP was starting from the presumption that he or she was going to use some wine.

Your point reminds me of a very old Letterman bit where he asks people to explain to him the difference between soup and gravy.

So would it be better to just stick to a stock-based gravy? Since I'm making the base from a soup stock rather than pan drippings, I'm nervous that it would just come off as a thick chicken soup unless I roast a whole lotta chicken wings to make a whole lotta drippings. That's why I considered making a wine-fortified sauce (thanks for the terminology correction!) instead.

Edit: The OP is a he, to save you some typing.

A perfectly respectable sherry could be had from a good wine seller for about $10. And it would enhance any number of other cooking projects. (Sauteed mushrooms-mmmm. Stir fries w/ soy sauce...)

A bit of cognac wouldn't hurt your sauce (or soup, or an effete gravy with notions above its station) either.

Evil Ronnie wrote:Wine in gravy? I don't think so. You simply deglaze the roasting pan with stock or water and then thicken. Once you start adding wine or other cityfied notions to your pan drippings, you begin to morph into gravy's city cousin...sauce.

Sort of like adding cream to your spaghetti carbonara. ( Antonious...that was for you)

E.R.:

You know me, Ronnie ... "It's-all-good" Antonius... As one of my favourite t.v. chefs sez, "Go ahead, knock yourself out"...

But note, there do exist the "carbonara" police, the Carabonieri, a.k.a. Carabinieri...

http://www.carabinieri.it/

But they clearly are out of their jurisdiction in Chicago...


Antonius (Malus)

P.S. Happy Thanksgiving!

$20-$30 is way too much to spend on a bottle of wine for cooking. I would stick to the just under $10 range.

I would also never buy a bottle if I was going to use less. When I see it on sale I buy the four packs of little bottles of wine in red and white (whichever brand). This way I always have wine on hand for cooking.

Cooks Illustrated recently evaluated white wines for cooking. They liked Sauvignon Blanc best followed by Dry Vermouth (which keeps for a long time). In the next tier was Chardonnay (which may be too oaky) and Riesling (which maybe too sweet). Cooks Illustrated also noted that wine can be frozen for cooking without adverse affect.

Wine that has gone flat is also fine to use for cooking.

-ramon

Dry Vermouth is a great solution (which I had forgotten), for cooking wine that can hang around - as opposed to ends of bottles one means to use up and then forgets about until they're way gone.

I get Tin Roof sauvignon blanc - not too expensive, and screw top If I want a little, I drink it, otherwise I use it in cooking. I keep it in the fridge. After a while it isn't really drink-worthy, but is still fine for sauces. I also keep a dry vermouth and a not-very-expensive sherry around, depending on what I have the taste for in my sauce. The trick is to cook the wine down a little, to take the "raw" edge off of it, before mixing it into your liquids.