Cooking with Sherry vs Cooking with Marsala

Many of my visitors write me because a recipe will call for using sherry or marsala. They want to know what these wines are, if they are interchangeable, and if they can substitute something else instead.

Marsala is a fortified wine (wine with alcohol added) from Italy -

Marsala Information

Sherry is a fortified wine from Spain -

Sherry Information

So they are both fortified wines - but they use completely different grapes, completely different techniques. It is sort of like saying a chicken and a turkey are both "birds". They have similar flavors, but not the same flavors. Maybe a better comparison would be saying lambs and pigs are both small mammals, so their meat has similar flavor but not the same.

So certainly you could cook a dish with marsala and it would be tasty - I love veal marsala for example. But it'd be a different flavor than the same dish with sherry.

Cooking with Wine Main Page




All content on the WineIntro website is personally written by author and wine enthusiast Lisa Shea. WineIntro explores the delicious variety and beautiful history which makes up our world of wine! Lisa loves supporting local wineries and encouraging people to drink whatever they like. We all have different taste buds, and that makes our world wonderful. Always drink responsibly.