Wine questions for cooking (from a wine-dunce)

I have some stewing beef in the freezer I need to use, so I am intending to make a summer stew tomorrow (with white wine, instead of red, not that I hardly ever put wine in anyway cos we don't drink red :rolleyes:). And what would be the best sort of wine to use? The recipe calls for 'dry', but that doesn't help me one iota. I don't want something expensive, the only thing I have heard about cooking with wine is not to use something that you wouldn't drink 'cos its nasty.

I only need to use about one cup worth of wine, and short of drinking the rest myself (which as you can see, I am not allowed to do :doh:, but would love to), how long will white wine keep once opened? And I keep it in the fridge, right? Sealed or unsealed? If I am lucky, the Man may have some, but he hardly ever drinks, just so he can stay triple zero BAC for work.

And since we're on the topic, all the same questions for using red wine in a stew too, please... :redface: Thank you.

Netix, you can buy little pouches of wine, white and red. You might just have to ask, as our local bottle shop (that use to have them) would have them hidden away.
From memory they are only a couple of dollars, and you don't have the wastage either :)

Nic

Dry White: verdelho? Something along those lines.... savignon blanc.

Red: I use a cabernet anything really....

I keep a goon bladder (read cask wine if, unlike me, you have left your teenage years behind) of "dry white wine" in my pantry. It's $10 for 2L, kept unchilled (because you don't really plan to drink it) and then you've always got it on hand for cooking. I bought one when I first moved in with DH, and still had some 18 months later. Just for cooking. I keep one of red too, and I would always use red with beef... says the vegan :D

Thank you all. Hadn't thought about cask... Its not bad wine, a lot of it.

The little pouch things sound good. Might go that way at the moment, until I can drink the rest of the bottle whilst cooking dinner......

Yeah, I always thought red with beef (and other red meats), white wine for white meat.

Thank you for the wine types to use too. Most helpful.