Marchand de Vin: Red Wine Reduction Sauce

By
Danilo Alfaro
Danlio Alfaro
Danilo Alfaro
Danilo Alfaro has published more than 800 recipes and tutorials focused on making complicated culinary techniques approachable to home cooks.
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Updated on 12/29/22
Red wine reduction sauce

Vegar Abelsnes Photography/Getty Images

Prep: 5 mins
Cook: 20 mins
Total: 25 mins
Servings: 8 servings

A marchand de vin (French for "wine merchant") sauce is a classic red wine reduction sauce that is best known as French steak sauce. Much like A1 is the go-to sauce in the U.S., this is the French culinary equivalent. In the most classic definition of "sauce," it is essentially a liquid plus some sort of thickening agent along with other flavoring ingredients.

In this case, the sauce is made by reducing dry red wine and chopped shallots and then simmering that in a basic demi-glace. The marchand de vin sauce is delicious served with roasts and steaks.

In classical French cooking, this sauce is considered a stepchild of the Espagnole mother sauce. Espagnole sauce (French for "Spanish") is a simple brown sauce. The Espagnole brown sauce is mixed with a few other ingredients like brown stock and spices to become a demi-glace. Demi-glace is a key component of marchand de vin.

The term "mother sauce" refers to any one of five basic sauces in French cooking, which are the starting point for making various secondary sauces or "small sauces." The other mother sauces are béchamel, velouté, tomato sauce, and Hollandaise.

Marchand de vin is not to be confused with other red wine reduction sauces popularly used in French cooking. There are quite a few, and they often get mistaken for each other since they use similar ingredients like demi-glace, shallots, and often, butter. The most commons ones being a Bordelaise sauce (Bordeaux wine, veal stock, beef marrow) and a Bourguignonne (Burgundy wine, mushrooms) sauce. Unlike its close relatives, the best wine to use for a marchand de vin sauce is one with soft tannins like a merlot or a pinot noir.

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Ingredients

Steps to Make It

  1. Gather the ingredients.

  2. In a heavy-bottomed saucepan, combine wine and shallots. Heat until liquid boils, lower heat a bit and continue simmering until liquid has reduced by three-fourths.

  3. Add demi-glace, then lower heat to a simmer, and reduce for about 5 minutes.

  4. Strain through a mesh strainer. Season to taste with kosher salt and black pepper.

Tip

  • Serve right away. If you made more than you needed, you can freeze the leftovers in ice cube trays and drop in a cube to liven up many dishes, sauces, or stews instantly.

Recipe Variations

  • Buttery goodness: For an even velvetier finish, you can add butter at the end of the recipe. Many French preparations of this sauce always include butter as an ingredient. You can include 2 to 4 tablespoons of butter (depending on how rich you want it). Add the cold butter a little at a time, whisking until it dissolves into the sauce. Do not over-mix it to the point that the butter becomes oily.
  • Flavor bomb: Add one sprig of thyme, one sprig of parsley, and a bay leaf to the wine and shallots. When you strain it, the sprigs and bay leaf will be collected. Toss them out.
Nutrition Facts (per serving)
72 Calories
3g Fat
5g Carbs
3g Protein
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Nutrition Facts
Servings: 8
Amount per serving
Calories 72
% Daily Value*
Total Fat 3g 4%
Saturated Fat 2g 10%
Cholesterol 8mg 3%
Sodium 339mg 15%
Total Carbohydrate 5g 2%
Dietary Fiber 0g 1%
Total Sugars 1g
Protein 3g
Vitamin C 1mg 4%
Calcium 20mg 2%
Iron 1mg 5%
Potassium 330mg 7%
*The % Daily Value (DV) tells you how much a nutrient in a food serving contributes to a daily diet. 2,000 calories a day is used for general nutrition advice.
(Nutrition information is calculated using an ingredient database and should be considered an estimate.)