Not Smuckers, Not Welch's: This Is The Best Grape Jelly In Stores

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Grape jelly has long been a fan favorite for those craving a PB&J, and when you're yearning that Concord grape taste — fruity, floral, sweet, and acidic — the best brand on the market is St. Dalfour Fruit Spread. Tasting Table recently compared 11 brands of grape jelly, and St. Dalfour came out on top for a reason that may surprise you: It tasted like grapes. Typically, many grape jellies are fruity and sweet like grape-flavored candy, but they don't always remind you of real grapes.

"There are literal pieces of grape skin in the spread, which immediately gives it a more natural, fruit-forward quality than many of the smoother jellies I tried," our taste tester said of St. Dalfour's. It didn't just have the sweetness you expect from grape jelly; there was also a complementary tartness to balance it. It's not made from Concord grapes, but from French wine grapes. The end result is a more complex flavor than you'll find in many traditional grape jellies.

There is a significant difference between jam and jelly. Jelly is traditionally made from fruit juice mixed with sugar and pectin. Jam is made with crushed or mashed fruit and sugar, but you rarely see it made from fruit like grapes. St. Dalfour's isn't technically a jelly, or a jam either. Because it uses no added sugar, it's a fruit spread.

St. Dalfour's website lists the ingredients in the fruit spread as 51% grapes, unsweetened grape and date fruit juice concentrates, fruit pectin, and lemon juice. Compare that to Smucker's Grape Jelly, which is made from Concord grape juice, high fructose corn syrup, corn syrup, fruit pectin, citric acid, and sodium citrate. Other popular brands like Welch's sport a nearly identical ingredient list. The flavor in St. Dalfour is almost entirely from grapes or grape juice rather than corn syrup, which is what sets it apart.

Other reviews of St. Dalfour echoed our taste tester's opinions. "Loaded with flavor, without tons of added ingredients that you don't need!" one reviewer on Walmart's website said. "The flavor isn't like those with artificial junk," said another reviewer on iHerb. The simple ingredients and lack of added sugar were a big selling point in many of the reviews, especially on iHerb, where customers praised St. Dalfour as more natural and better tasting than traditional jellies.

Concord grapes were developed in the 1850s in Concord, Massachusetts. Concorde grape jam dates back to World War I when Welch's developed it to send overseas with U.S. soldiers. After the war, Welch's switched from jam to jelly and sold it in stores. After so long, grape jelly is entrenched in our culinary history, and a fruit spread like St. Dalfour's seems unusual as a result. If the jellies in stores don't tickle your fancy, there's an easy way to make grape jam at home.