Mavrodaphne substitutes

Portuguese fortified sweet red wine.

Best for

stifado and beef braises, pork and rabbit dishes, pan sauces, dried-fruit desserts, poached fruit

The best match on sweetness, body and color. Ruby port is fruitier and brighter; tawny is nuttier and more oxidised, which is actually nearer to Mavrodaphne's raisin-and-coffee character, so reach for tawny if you have a choice. Port often runs a percent or two higher in alcohol, so a reduction may need an extra minute to lose its edge.

Sicilian fortified wine in its sweet style.

Best for

braises, pan sauces, chicken and pork, desserts and syrups, zabaglione-style custards

A little more caramel and almond, a little less dark red fruit, and in a braise most people could not tell it apart. The critical detail is the label: Marsala secco is dry, and using it by mistake leaves the dish tasting thin and savory where it should taste round and sweet. It is also paler, so a sauce will look browner than red.

Sweet oxidative Spanish fortified wines.

Best for

braises, pan sauces, poured over ice cream, poached dried fruit

Pedro Ximenez is dramatically sweeter and thicker than Mavrodaphne, closer to molasses in a glass, which is why you use less and cut back other sugar in the recipe. Both are lighter in color, so a finished sauce reads brown and glossy rather than deep red. The raisin and fig notes are genuinely close.

Building the sweetness back into an ordinary bottle of red.

Best for

stifado, beef and lamb braises, tomato-based stews

The raisin route tastes noticeably closer than sugar alone, because raisins bring the dried-fruit aroma rather than just sweetness; simmer them in the wine for ten minutes and strain. Either way the liquid stays thinner than a fortified wine, so a reduction will not coat a spoon the same way. Good in savory dishes, much weaker in desserts.

Any sweet red or amber dessert wine used as a direct pour.

Best for

braises, desserts, syrups, cheese pairings

Sweet reds work well and the substitution is usually invisible. Sweet whites, meaning Sauternes, late-harvest Riesling or Moscato, do not, because you lose both the color and the tannin that stand up to lamb, beef or a long tomato braise, and the dish ends up tasting sweet and flabby.

The non-alcoholic stand-in, concentrated so it behaves like fortified wine.

Best for

braises, pan sauces, dessert soaks, cooking without alcohol

Reducing is what makes this work: it concentrates the sugar and body until the liquid coats a spoon the way a fortified wine does. The vinegar is not optional, because without acidity the sauce tastes flatly sweet and cloying. Since there is no alcohol to extract alcohol-soluble aromas from the meat and spices, the finished sauce is simpler and less layered.