not great wine, not worth to cook with

[TheEngineer]

Yesterday, I knew I would be having issues pulling together one of the meals (turned out I had issues pulling together any meal), so I decided to make Coq au vin a la Crockpot.

It literally took five minutes..probably three, ....including the time to wash. It was a frenzy not unlike the one you see on tv as I tried to get out of the house with the kids only a few mintutes being schedule. Four strips of thick bacon, cut by scissors (i told you I was in a rush), into a frying pan, quickly chopped up onion went in after, then into the crockpot, chicken came out of package, in for rinse, and into pan that had just been used to brown baon and onions for a quick brown at high heat, in went herbs, seasoning, can of stock, and then the wine..... a colleague had dropped of a bottle of some strange Italian that probably comes from a wine month of a club program. I opened it, ...thin, .....soda pop style so everyone would like it....no character, no structure, ...like water with coloring, just enough of wine to make i recognizably as wine......could have come from anywhere.......jsut extremely bland and uninteresting ... .but... .alas in the time crunch, it was not corked!! so in went 1/2 bottle and then the chicken, closed the lid, turned crock on for 4 hours.....left.

It was okay...but the wine barely left a mark on the dish. It was like it was chicken stew...where was the wine.?? Lesson learned. I've always make CaV with either a southern Rhone or a Burgundy that I like to drink and that is the last part. I need to like to drink it frirst. In my haste, I ruined a perfectly good Coq A Vin.