I honestly think cheap wine spoils the taste of western food, whether in it or with it. Good wine improves it. If a person can't tell the difference, then, that's fine, but I think I can. I also don't usually use a cup for red wine recipes but use a full bottle and reduce it down, so maybe that makes a difference.
I also think full malt beers taste better in cooking than the thin potations usually on offer in China, and that long cooking is often needed to drive off the hops where it isn't appropriate, so beers not using very bitter hops are more preferable to bitter beers. Saaz hops make better beers anyway, IMHO.Here I usually use Peterlance, which is Chinese but tastes sort of like a European Ale, maltier and less bitter. Beer duck for example tastes a LOT better with Peterlance than with anything else I have tried so far. It seems to have about double the malt residue when reduced.
I haven't stuck to a recipe as written past the first time I cooked it since I was a teenager, and I don't even do that if I don't have all the 'right' ingredients, or already know how I prefer it.