I just made my first wine reduction sauce but is it supposed to taste like this?

Did you make it with the meat juices? I have only made a wine reduction sauce with the juices from the meat and no fruit juice.

I didn’t add meat juices, I’m making duck and the recipe for the sauce is a citrus red wine reduction sauce. It doesn’t taste bad just really really strong and has a funky after taste. The butter is fairly strong too.

Did you use a decent wine? I just made a red wine/mustard sauce which tasted kind of weird to me. Too mustardy.

Sometimes you can reduce it too much. I was trying to make a balsamic vinegar reduction on Christmas and I went too far and burnt the whole thing.

The wine may have been off then and maybe it was too much butter for your taste – or maybe the butter is slightly off.

@wundayatta, speaking of sauces, how did your amazing Christmas dinner turn out? Can you post a link back to the question where you posted your menu (which I can’t find now) and tell us there?

Here’s the link to the menu. Let’s see. Do you want the self-critique or the audience response first? Ok, the audience said it was fabulous.

I got a raw potato. They were in the oven for an hour, but I guess I should have parboiled them first. I also should have made more of them.

The squash was fabulous, although I killed the balsamic vinegar reduction by heating it for too long. So basically I went without it. I don’t think anyone noticed. But I wish I could have served them fresh out of the oven instead of making them the day before. The day before they were to die for—even without the balsamic vinegar and parmesan. In fact, I would bother with those next time. Or maybe I would just to see what it would be like with it.

But you bake the squash on cookie sheets after tossing them in oil and garlic, and the bottom of the squash carmelizes and the garlic adds a hint of… whatever. It is incredible.

The yellow and red beets looked beautiful, and I think they tasted good, but I forgot to put the goats cheese and pine nuts on top. So I wonder what that would have been like. No one missed it because I didn’t tell them it wasn’t there, but still, I had the ingredients in my fridge. The pressure of pulling it all together at the last second. Too much for me. Just couldn’t keep track of it all.

Somehow, between taking it off the shelf and pulling it out of the fridge, I lost my parsley. So it wasn’t on the beet salad, either.

The creamed onions were delicious, as always. The fruit cup was also fabulous. We had real mince pie and Christmas cookies and pecan pralines (which didn’t come out right, but were ok, anyway, except there were too many other good things for people to try them).

And the beast? Perfect! Just the right rareness and tenderness and, well, I need help eating it, since I ordered four ribs and only two were consumed. Gonna make beef broth (and not boil it to death this time. I put a rib in the freezer (cut in two).

People kept telling me how much they enjoyed it. I hope I was the only one who got a raw potato. The gravy was interesting, too. I’m not sure I like it, but my wife does.

So it worked out. I did take on too much and lost something because of it (typical), but people didn’t really notice because what was there was very tasty. Plus there was wine and company, and when you have good company, that can really enhance the food.

@wundayatta, your answer makes me want to give you a huge hug. I think it was the part about losing your parsley that did it.