Fortified Wine substitute

Best substitute

Dry sherry (fino, manzanilla or amontillado)

Use the same amount for any dry fortified wine as the fortified wine you are replacing

Best for mushroom dishes

Different taste

First work out whether your recipe wants a dry fortified wine or a sweet one, because they are not interchangeable. For savoury dishes, dry sherry, dry Marsala or dry vermouth all swap 1:1 for each other. For sweet or rich dishes, tawny port, sweet Marsala, cream sherry and Madeira all swap 1:1. Madeira is the most useful single bottle to own because it sits in the middle and works in both directions. If you need it alcohol-free, use stock plus a teaspoon of sherry vinegar for savoury dishes, or grape juice plus a splash of vinegar for sweet ones.

Other fortified wine substitutes

Ranked, with the exact amount to use

2Madeira
Different taste
Use the same amount for almost any fortified wine
Deliberately heated during ageing, which gives it a tangy, toffee-and-dried-apricot flavour and unusually high acidity, and it comes in styles running from bone dry Sercial to sweet Malmsey.
What changes
Best for
pan sauces, beef and veal braises, mushrooms, consomme, cooked fruit and custards
If you keep only one fortified wine for cooking, keep Madeira. Its acidity makes it the best deglazer of the family, and because it is already effectively cooked it survives an open bottle in the cupboard for months without deteriorating.
3Marsala (dry or sweet, matched to your recipe)
Different taste
Use the same amount
Sicilian, strongly caramelised and raisiny, with the dry version reading nutty and savoury and the sweet version reading close to a soft toffee, so it makes its presence known more than sherry does.
What changes
Best for
chicken and veal, mushrooms, zabaglione, tiramisu, pan sauces
The most widely stocked fortified wine in supermarkets, which makes it the practical answer. Its caramel note is assertive, so start with three-quarters of the amount when substituting into something delicate and taste.
4Port (tawny for savoury depth, ruby for berry fruit)
Different taste
Use the same amount for any sweet fortified wine
Sweet, thick and around 20 percent alcohol, with tawny tasting of walnut, fig and caramel from long barrel ageing and ruby tasting of fresh blackberry and plum.
What changes
Best for
reduction sauces for beef and duck, cheese boards, chocolate desserts, poached and dried fruit, gravies
Do not substitute port into a dish that wanted a dry fortified wine without adjusting; it carries real sugar and will reduce to something sticky. Red port also stains, so it is wrong for anything pale or creamy.
5Vermouth (dry or sweet)
Different taste
Use the same amount
A fortified wine that has additionally been infused with wormwood, herbs, roots and citrus peel, so alongside the expected weight and acidity you get a clear herbal, faintly bitter aroma that the grape-only fortified wines do not have.
What changes
Best for
deglazing, cream sauces, risotto, chicken, fish
The most forgiving substitute in a home kitchen because an open bottle lasts for months in the fridge and it is genuinely cheap. The herbal note is the trade-off: in a French or Italian dish it usually reads as an improvement, in a Spanish sherry-based dish it reads as wrong.
6Stock plus vinegar, or grape juice plus vinegar (alcohol-free)
Taste and texture differ
Savoury: ¼ cup stock plus 1 teaspoon sherry vinegar. Sweet: 3 tablespoons grape juice plus 1 tablespoon water and ½ teaspoon vinegar
This replaces the liquid, some of the savoury body and some of the sharpness, but not the warmth or the aromatic lift, because it is the alcohol itself that carries volatile smells out of the pan and into your nose.
What changes
Best for
alcohol-free cooking, braises, gravies, glazes
Be honest with yourself here: there is no true non-alcoholic substitute for a fortified wine, and anyone selling you one is overstating it. This is the least-bad option and it works best in dishes with many other flavours. Add the vinegar off the heat so it does not turn harsh.

What is Fortified Wine?

Fortified Wine is Fortified wine is ordinary wine that has had neutral grape spirit added to it, which pushes the alcohol from around 12 percent up to roughly 15 to 22 percent and makes the wine both more concentrated in flavour and far more stable once opened; port, sherry, Madeira, Marsala and vermouth are all fortified wines.

Cooking tips

The one question that decides your substitute is dry or sweet. The dry column is fino and manzanilla sherry, dry amontillado, dry Marsala, dry vermouth and Sercial Madeira; the sweet column is ruby and tawny port, cream sherry, Pedro Ximenez, sweet Marsala, sweet vermouth and Bual or Malmsey Madeira. Swapping within a column is nearly free. Swapping across columns changes the dish, and you have to add or remove sugar to compensate.
Fortified wine is in a recipe for concentration, not just for alcohol. Because the spirit was added partway through or after fermentation, these wines carry more sugar, more glycerol and more extract than table wine, which is why a quarter cup of Madeira gives a sauce body that half a cup of Chardonnay will not. If you swap in ordinary wine, use the same volume but reduce it longer.
Keeping power is the practical reason home cooks should own one. An open bottle of table wine is tired in three days. Oxidatively aged fortified wines such as tawny port, oloroso sherry, Madeira and Marsala keep for one to three months in the fridge. The exception is fino or manzanilla sherry, which is aged under yeast rather than air and goes stale within about a week.
Never substitute or adjust wine, vinegar or any other acid in a tested canning, pickling, fermenting or curing recipe. Those recipes are engineered to hit a specific acidity that keeps the food safe, and changing the acid source or amount can allow botulism to develop. Follow the recipe exactly as written, and use the National Center for Home Food Preservation as your reference for anything you plan to jar.
Skip anything sold specifically as cooking wine or cooking sherry. Those bottles are salted so they can be sold without an alcohol licence, and the salt is not accounted for in your recipe. A cheap real bottle of Marsala or sherry costs about the same, tastes far better, and keeps just as long.

Frequently asked questions

What counts as a fortified wine?

Port, sherry, Madeira, Marsala, Vin Santo, Commandaria, Mavrodaphne, Pedro Ximenez and vermouth are the ones you will meet in recipes. All of them are grape wine with neutral spirit added, which is what separates them from ordinary table wine at around 12 percent and from spirits such as brandy at 40 percent. Vermouth is technically an aromatized fortified wine, meaning botanicals were infused as well.

Can I use brandy instead of fortified wine?

Not at the same volume. Brandy is roughly twice the strength and has no sweetness or acidity of its own, so pouring a quarter cup into a pan sauce will taste raw and boozy. If brandy is all you have, use one tablespoon of brandy plus enough stock or grape juice to make up the volume the recipe asked for, and let it bubble for a full minute before adding anything else.

Can I just leave the fortified wine out?

In a stew or braise with plenty of other liquid, yes: use the same volume of stock and add a teaspoon of sherry vinegar or lemon juice at the end so the dish is not flat. In a dish named after the wine, such as a Madeira sauce, chicken Marsala or zabaglione, it is the main flavour and removing it leaves you with something else entirely.

Does the alcohol cook off?

Most of it goes, but never all of it. A brief deglaze leaves a meaningful amount behind, and even after a long simmer a trace remains, because alcohol and water form a mixture that does not boil away completely. If you are cooking for someone who avoids alcohol for medical, religious or personal reasons, use the stock or juice route rather than relying on cooking it off.

Which fortified wine should I buy if I only want one bottle?

Madeira, and specifically a dry to medium style such as Verdelho. It has enough acidity to deglaze like a white wine, enough sweetness and body to work in sauces for beef and duck, it is at home in both savoury and dessert cooking, and it will sit open in your cupboard for months without going off. Dry vermouth is the runner-up on price and availability.

Related substitutes

More alcohol & vinegars substitutes

Fortified Wine substitute

Other fortified wine substitutes

2Madeira

3Marsala (dry or sweet, matched to your recipe)

4Port (tawny for savoury depth, ruby for berry fruit)

5Vermouth (dry or sweet)

6Stock plus vinegar, or grape juice plus vinegar (alcohol-free)