FoodPorn

Lol I'm imagining someone eating a McDonald's hamburger and drinking from a bottle of wine screaming "it's stew!"

It sounds like there might not be much in your stew to thicken it. The beef fat helps a bit, but you can toss the beef chunks in flour to give the stew a bit more body. This recipe I used just straight up has you add some unflavored powdered gelatin to it to give you that coating-the-back-of-a-spoon texture.

I’ve used red wine and beef in dishes together in the past. Usually you just need something a little salty to balance the sweetness out. The UK condiment marmite usually does the trick for me, although soy sauce can work in a pinch.

Serious Eats has a phenomenal (albeit labor intensive) recipe for beef stew. I've made it three times and all three times have been the best stew I've ever eaten. And that's certainly not to toot my own horn, I've made mediocre beef soup as you call it, and every other iteration of mediocre stew.

That bowl is doing it's absolute best.

Edit: Removed the "fuck off" because it came across as serious.