New Ingredient: Chianti, a red wine

A bottle of Dellatorri Chianti.

For my next "go for the gusto" recipe, I needed to hunt down a couple of things, one of which was a "red wine, preferably a Chianti."

I don't know anything about wine except it gives me a hellacious headache, not the morning after an evening of wine swilling, but immediately after one small glass. As I did for the dry white wine, I had to do some homework on this Chianti. I learned a few things about wine while I hunted for a name-brand Chianti online and then for a bottle in the store:

• First of all, it's not Shee-auntie or Chee-auntie. It's Key-auntie.
• Second, it's damn near impossible to get a straight answer about what brand of Key-auntie is best to use for cooking since only wine extraordinaires have an opinion on the first 1,000 Google hits and they are all about drinking it. All those experts are willing to get into detail about the finest points of each Key-auntie and all I want to know is which relatively inexpensive one can I stew some beef in!
• Third, there is a sort of method to the wine madness at Ralph's (known as Kroger out east) -- it's by wine type. I hope this is the case for all grocery stores. All you have to do is browse until you find the type you want and then focus in on the prices.
• Lastly, you'll find that Key-auntie is the tiniest section of wine right down there about 2" off the floor. In other words, you'll find it in the last place you look. Yup, as you give up the hunt, you'll finally see it.

Good luck with your wine-hunting if you are a wine novice like me. Hopefully this post has helped. We'll see how my selection worked for us.

Dellatorri Chianti, 750 mL = $8.99.