Cooking with Whine

I made Chicken Divan the other night.  I haven't made it in FOREVER, and definitely not since I got sober.  However, I needed to come up with a dish that could be frozen for a family with a new baby, and that's always been my old standby in situations like this.

So, I went to Kroger and shopped for all the ingredients.

Now, you need to understand that in the past, I've always used white wine or sherry in the sauce.  Not wanting to purchase the "real" thing, I purchased a small bottle of white cooking wine.  You're only supposed to use 3 tablespoons in the sauce, or 5 1/2, since I was increasing the recipe by half.  I put in the amount called for, and all you could taste was butter and plain flour. Yuck! So, I continued adding and adding more cooking wine, and it still turned out very disappointing.  My husband liked it okay, but I knew it wasn't nearly as good as what I used to make with real wine or sherry.

So, this is my dilemma: I love to cook, and in the past cooked a lot, and a lot of my favorite and most popular recipes called for wine.  I don't want to use "real" wine now, because, quite frankly, I think it's still too much of a temptation for me to have open in the house.  But, how do I cook and get the same quality of taste from recipes calling for wine when I can't, or won't, use it?

Any advice from other alkies would be greatly appreciated.  Meanwhile, I guess I just need to suck it up and quit whining.