I believe I was about to be 20 years old when I learned this cooking method. I was visiting a girlfriend of mine up north for her birthday. She was a new mom at the time going to college full time, living in a little house off campus. Her birthday falls extremely close to Thanksgiving and her Cuban mother-in-law happened to be visiting at the exact same time I was there. In mid conversation, I opened the fridge to get a drink and was greeted by a turkey sitting in a bath of wine in the middle of the bottom shelf. I asked what the heck was going on with the turkey taking a dip in the wine pond? Her mother-in-law told me she always marinades her turkey in wine for a few days before baking it. It was the way her mother had done it and her grandmothers before them.
As I got older, I experimented a lot with different methods; then I remembered the old wine trick. I switched up the type of wine and poured in orange juice… The results were simply sublime! I have never gone back to any other method, and don't think I ever will.