Wine is a common ingredient in pasta sauces, such as white wine in amatriciana sauce or red wine in a bordelaise sauce, since the alcohol enhances the sauce's flavor and counters the fat and salt with refreshing acidity. If you love some wine in your sauce, you should try and axe the other sauce ingredients altogether.

Bon Appétit’s red wine spaghetti and Saveur’s spaghetti all'ubriaco both use red wine as the sauce, making for a wine-centric dish. Bon Appétit adds garlic, olive oil, butter, and red pepper flakes to their dish, while Saveur uses a similar lineup, but ditches the butter and adds parsley, oregano, and a beef bouillon cube.

You should always reduce wine (combined any other sauce ingredients) for 20 to 25 minutes before mixing with pasta. Red wine pasta can be polarizing for some, since Serious Eats notes that the wine flavor is very noticeable and the dish will have a deep purple color, a far cry from the red tomato sauce many of us know.