Sweet Kosher Wine substitute

Best substitute

Concord grape juice plus a splash of vinegar

Use 1 cup Concord grape juice + 1 tsp red wine vinegar for every 1 cup sweet kosher wine

Best for brisket

Close match

Bottled Concord juice is pressed from exactly the same grape, so you keep the unmistakable grape-jelly aroma and the deep purple colour that makes a brisket gravy look right.

Other sweet kosher wine substitutes

Ranked, with the exact amount to use

2Dry red wine plus sugar
Different taste
Use 1 cup dry red wine + 2 to 3 tbsp sugar for every 1 cup sweet kosher wine
The most likely bottle already in your kitchen, corrected for sweetness so the braise does not turn sour.
What changes
Best for
brisket, short ribs, pot roast, pan sauces
Tastes distinctly more tannic and grown-up: less grape jelly, more red wine. The finished brisket reads French rather than Ashkenazi, which many people prefer. Stir the sugar in before it goes near the heat so it dissolves evenly.
3Ruby port, sweet Marsala or Madeira
Different taste
Use ¾ cup port + ¼ cup water for every 1 cup sweet kosher wine
Fortified sweet wines get you the sugar and the body in one bottle, which is why they reduce into such a glossy braising sauce.
What changes
Best for
brisket, short ribs, reduction sauces, poached fruit
Much stronger and more alcoholic, with a raisiny, nutty depth Concord wine does not have, so dilute it and expect a darker, more brooding gravy. It is not kosher unless the specific bottle is certified.
4Pomegranate juice plus sugar
Different taste
Use 1 cup pomegranate juice + 1 tbsp sugar for every 1 cup sweet kosher wine
A good alcohol-free option when you cannot find Concord juice, and a natural fit alongside the onions and dried fruit in a holiday braise.
What changes
Best for
brisket, lamb, braised chicken, alcohol-free cooking
Sharper and more astringent than sweet wine and ruby red rather than purple. It is excellent in a savoury braise and less convincing in charoset, where the specific Concord grape flavour is half the point.
5Concord grape jelly thinned with water
Different texture
Use ¼ cup grape jelly + ¾ cup water + 1 tsp vinegar for every 1 cup sweet kosher wine
Crude but surprisingly effective, because grape jelly is essentially Concord grapes and sugar, which is most of what the wine was contributing.
What changes
Best for
brisket, sweet and sour meatballs, emergency swaps
Whisk it into the hot pan liquid so it dissolves rather than sitting in a lump. Cut back on any other sugar in the recipe, and skip this in charoset where the texture matters.
6Another sweet kosher bottle: kosher Moscato, cream sherry or late-harvest red
Different taste
Use the same amount
If you need the dish to stay kosher, the substitute has to be certified too, and sweet certified bottles other than Concord wine are widely sold.
What changes
Best for
kosher kitchens, brisket, desserts, poached fruit
A sweet white such as Moscato behaves the same way in a braise but gives you no colour at all, so a brisket sauce comes out tan instead of dark purple. Certification is about supervision, not flavour: no substitute makes a dish kosher on its own.

What is Sweet Kosher Wine?

Sweet Kosher Wine is Sweet kosher wine, best known by the Manischewitz and Kedem labels, is a very sweet, low-alcohol red wine pressed from Concord grapes and heavily sweetened, sold for Jewish ritual use and cooked into brisket, tzimmes and charoset.

Cooking tips

In a classic brisket the sweet wine and the onions together are making a sweet-and-sour sauce. If you swap in a dry wine and do not add sugar, the whole dish tastes harsh, so taste the braising liquid before it goes in the oven and adjust while you still can.
Sweet wine is full of sugar, so it scorches where dry wine would not. Reduce it over moderate heat rather than a hard boil, and stir the bottom of the pan.
For charoset the wine is a binder as much as a flavour: add it a tablespoon at a time until the chopped apples and nuts just hold together, and use less of a thin juice substitute than the recipe states.
A long braise drives off most of the alcohol but not reliably all of it. If that matters for anyone at your table, start with grape juice rather than cooking wine off and hoping.
Ordinary supermarket grape juice made from Concord grapes tastes closer to Manischewitz than any wine does. Reach for the purple juice, not the white grape juice, which is a different grape entirely.

Frequently asked questions

Can I just use regular red wine instead of sweet kosher wine?

You can, but add sugar. A cup of dry red plus 2 to 3 tablespoons of sugar lands close to where Concord wine was. Straight dry red wine in a recipe written for sweet wine is the most common way brisket goes wrong: the sauce comes out sharp and tannic instead of sweet and glossy.

Is Manischewitz the same thing as sweet kosher wine?

Manischewitz is the best-known brand of it, and Kedem is the other. Recipes that say sweet kosher wine, Concord wine, sacramental wine or simply sweet red wine are all pointing at the same very sweet, low-alcohol Concord grape wine, and they can be used interchangeably.

Can I leave the wine out altogether?

In a braise, yes, if you replace the liquid. Use the same volume of beef stock plus 2 tablespoons of sugar and a teaspoon of vinegar and the dish is still good, just less fruity and a shade less dark. In charoset the wine is most of the moisture and flavour, so leaving it out means using apple juice or grape juice instead rather than nothing.

What is a non-alcoholic substitute for sweet kosher wine?

Concord grape juice with a teaspoon of red wine vinegar per cup is the closest by a wide margin, and pomegranate juice with a little sugar is the next best. Grape juice is also the traditional non-alcoholic option for ritual use, though that is a religious question rather than a cooking one and worth asking your rabbi about rather than a recipe site.

Can I use dry red wine and sweet kosher wine interchangeably in any recipe?

No, and this is the one place the two are genuinely not swappable without adjustment. Sweet Concord wine carries a lot of sugar. Going from sweet to dry means adding sugar, and going from dry to sweet means cutting the sugar elsewhere in the recipe or the sauce ends up cloying.

Related substitutes

More alcohol & vinegars substitutes

Sweet Kosher Wine substitute

Other sweet kosher wine substitutes

2Dry red wine plus sugar

3Ruby port, sweet Marsala or Madeira

4Pomegranate juice plus sugar

5Concord grape jelly thinned with water

6Another sweet kosher bottle: kosher Moscato, cream sherry or late-harvest red