Knowledge Base › Dan Marek - Ask Me Anything (Office Half Hour)

Is there a particular vintage of red wine that you suggest or use for French dishes such as Coq au Vin or Beef Burgundy?

Ask Me Anything (Office Half Hour)

Dan Marek - Ask Me Anything (Office Half Hour)

Recorded

This event was on June 24, 2025

Join Chef Dan Marek in his virtual office as he welcomes all of your questions. This event was created for you and we encourage you to Ask Anything – from cooking techniques to course-specific questions, to how to turn your cooking passion into profit or simply hearing the perspective of a professional chef, Chef Dan is ready to answer them all.

View Event Details

Question

Robert Kerr

Is there a particular vintage of red wine that you suggest or use for French dishes such as Coq au Vin or Beef Burgundy?

Answer

So, uh, like beef burgundy traditionally is going to be a pinot, right? Um, you know, I don't do beef burgundy, but I do mushroom or seitan burgundies. Um, and yeah, pinot noirs typically, uh, what you're using in those, and you're usually buying them from burgundy if you can. Now, that being said, you don't have to stick to that exact rule. That's okay to be able to break the the rules a little bit. It's one of my favorite things to do in the kitchen. That's why I kind of started doing what I do with, uh, vegan and plant-based food is looking for conversions of traditional meals like a b beef Bergen, uh, burgundy or beef burgon to be able to turn them into like a mushroom me seitan version of those. Um, so there's not a, a spec specific vintage, you know, um, but, uh, variety and varietals. I'd probably go for a, you know, a dark pinot. Um, you could definitely use a ca a cabernet or like a Merlott or something like that as well too. Um, but beef burgundy is typically, you know, going to be used from Burgundy, um, from the region of Burgundy.

Dan Marek

Director of Plant-Based Culinary & Dev

*Dan Marek* is a chef educator who has been teaching vegan and vegetarian cooking for over 15 years. At Rouxbe, he is our Director of Plant-Based Culinary and Development where he helps develop content, classes and builds courses for many of our partners. Dan is a board member of Slow Food Austin, the Institute of Child Nutrition, and Conscious Capitalism. He has earned his BA in Journalism from the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University and holds certificates in Nutrition from Cornell University. Prior to his role with Rouxbe, Dan worked with Whole Kids Foundation training teachers and food service at schools across the country on nutrition and culinary best practices. He also worked as a Healthy Eating Educator at Whole Foods Market’s flagship store in Austin, TX, was a personal chef for some of Austin’s elite business people, taught classes in culinary techniques at Austin Community College, The Natural Epicurean, and Le Cordon Bleu. Dan also regularly volunteers cooking or speaking about nutrition for the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, Marathon Kids, Health Alliance for Austin Musicians, and the Ronald McDonald House Charities of Austin and Central Texas.