Wine experts can anyone tell the difference on which white wine was used for cooking in a restaurant?

Question

Lets say for an example Boston scrod that If some restaurants may cook with chardonnay or some restaurants may with suavignon blanc an can anyone tell the difference?

Answer 1

You might be able to ascetain which varietal was used in preparing a dish. But to go beyond that...probably not. Most restaurants are going to use a very inexpensive wine in the kitchen. You can bet that the flavors already in the pan, (garlic, onion, shallot, tomato, whatever) are going to be more pronounced than any subtle flavors in the wine. A chef will generally use wine for the acidity that it contributes rather than any specific elements of a flavor profile.

MOST people would not be able to tell you whether a dish was cooked with an SB, a chard, or a semillon. A REAL wine snob? Maybe. A REAL foodie? Again, maybe. If they are focusing on what wine was used, you probably have a bigger problem with the dish.

Cheers!

Answer 2

scrod maybe, but that would depend on what else was used in the recipe. Scrod has virtually no flavor by itself so it picks up the flavors of what it's cooked with. Chardonnay can add a distinct flavor element, suavignon blanc not so much.

Many chefs cook with vermouth - versus a varietal white.

Answer 3

If someone told you that they could there would be two plausible answers:

1) They are lying, or
2) The sauce is very bland and they might be able to guess as to a varietal, but never the actual wine.

Certain grapes have different characteristics that may come through in a sauce (mainly acidity or sweetness) that could lend some clues. But any chef worth a dash of pepper would have a multitude of ingredients that would mask most of those.