Homemade Strawberry Wine

Strawberry wine is one of the most popular homemade country wines, and it’s especially popular in the south. There are even classic country songs about strawberry wine!

This sweet, blush-pink wine captures the essence of summer strawberries in every sip, and it is the perfect way to preserve a bumper crop of fresh berries long after the harvest ends.

Homemade strawberry wine ferments into a beautiful rose-colored wine with a delicate fruity sweetness that improves with age. The flavor is unmistakably strawberry but refined, with none of the cloying sweetness you might expect from a berry wine.

Fresh strawberries bring natural sugars and a touch of acidity to the fermentation, though we add a few specialty winemaking ingredients to create a balanced wine that will age gracefully for years. You can also make a strawberry mead by substituting honey for some or all of the sugar, which adds complexity and a gorgeous golden-pink hue to the finished wine.

Ingredients for Strawberry Wine

All country winemaking recipes aim to create a balanced fruit wine with enough residual sweetness to be enjoyable, enough acidity to add bright flavor, and enough tannin for good body and mouthfeel. Strawberries bring wonderful color and flavor, but like most fruits (besides grapes), they need a few additions to make a successful wine. Here is what goes into a gallon batch of country wine ingredients:

• Fresh strawberries (4-5 pounds per gallon) – The star of the show. Use ripe, fragrant strawberries at peak sweetness for the best flavor. Slightly overripe berries are actually ideal for winemaking since they have higher sugar content and more developed flavors. Frozen strawberries work well too, and freezing actually helps break down the cell walls to release more juice. Avoid underripe or tasteless supermarket berries, as the wine can only be as good as the fruit you start with.
• Sugar (about 2 pounds per gallon) – Required because strawberries are not nearly as sweet as wine grapes, and without enough sugar the yeast will consume it all too quickly and stall out. The sugar is what gets converted into alcohol, so the finished wine will not taste overly sweet since most of it transforms during fermentation. You cannot use indigestible sugar substitutes like monk fruit, stevia, or Splenda since the yeast need to actually digest the sugar, not just taste sweetness. For a strawberry mead, substitute some or all of the sugar with honey.
• Water – Creates the wine base and dilutes the concentrated fruit. Use filtered or spring water if your tap water has a strong chlorine taste, as chlorine can inhibit yeast activity and affect fermentation.
• Wine yeast – Different strains produce dramatically different flavors and alcohol levels. Yeast contribute flavor esters during fermentation that can enhance fruitiness, floral notes, or other characteristics. See the yeast section below for strain recommendations specific to strawberry wine. Never use bread yeast, which produces off-flavors and dies out at low alcohol levels.
• Yeast nutrient – While wine grapes have all the nutrients yeast need to survive, strawberries are deficient in certain minerals. Yeast cannot live on sugar alone and need nitrogen and other nutrients to thrive. You can substitute a handful of golden raisins (sultanas work best for neutral flavor), but powdered yeast nutrient gives more consistent results.
• Acid blend – Serves two purposes: creates the proper pH environment for yeast to work (wine cannot ferment properly without enough acidity), and balances the residual sweetness for better flavor. Strawberries have moderate natural acidity, so you need less acid blend than many fruit wines. You can substitute 1 tablespoon of fresh lemon juice for each teaspoon of acid blend.
• Pectic enzyme – Optional but recommended. Breaks down the natural pectin in strawberries that would otherwise cloud the wine. Strawberries are actually fairly low in pectin compared to fruits like apples or currants, but adding pectic enzyme still results in better clarity in the finished wine. Alternatively, freezing your strawberries for a week before winemaking reduces pectin by about 50%.
• Tannin – Adds body and improves mouthfeel. Strawberries have very little natural tannin, so without adding some the wine can taste thin and watery. Just a hint of tannic astringency balances a wine that would otherwise be cloying. Add a small amount of tannin powder or brew a strong cup of plain black tea as a substitute.

Equipment for Strawberry Wine

In addition to ingredients, you will need some basic winemaking equipment. The good news is that most of this gear is reusable for batch after batch:

• Wide-mouth gallon jar or fermentation crock (for primary fermentation with the fruit)
• Narrow-neck glass carboy with airlock (for secondary fermentation)
• Auto-siphon or racking cane with tubing for moving the wine to a clean container and bottling
• Wine bottles and corks
• Double lever hand corker (or use flip-top Grolsch bottles instead)
• Brewing sanitizer
• Fine mesh strainer or cheesecloth for straining out fruit

A wide-mouth fermenter is especially helpful for strawberry wine since you will be fermenting with the whole fruit in the primary stage. Mason jar fermentation kits work great for small batches, and many of the airlock lids designed for making sauerkraut work perfectly fine for wine.

How to Make Strawberry Wine

The process follows the same basic method as any small-batch fruit wine. If you are new to winemaking, I recommend reading through my beginner’s guide to making homemade wine first. For mead variations using honey instead of sugar, see my guide on how to make mead.

Preparing the Strawberries

Wash and hull your strawberries, removing the green tops and any bruised or moldy spots. There is no need to chop or mash them at this stage.

If you are using frozen strawberries, let them thaw first but save all of the juice that releases during thawing since it is packed with flavor.

Extracting the Juice

Place the whole strawberries in your primary fermenter and pour the sugar directly over them. I know it looks strange, but trust the process. The sugar pulls the juice right out of the berries through osmosis.

Let this sit for several hours or overnight, and you will come back to find the sugar completely dissolved in a pool of gorgeous strawberry juice. Use a wooden spoon or potato masher to gently muddle the softened berries and release even more juice.

Mixing the Must

Add the acid blend, yeast nutrient, pectic enzyme, and tannin to the strawberry mixture.

Fill the fermenter with water, leaving a few inches of headspace at the top for fermentation activity. Give everything a good stir to combine.

Pitching the Yeast

Once the must has cooled to room temperature (below 90°F), it is time to add the yeast. Rehydrate dry yeast first by dissolving it in about a quarter cup of warm water and letting it sit for 5-10 minutes.

Going straight from a dehydrated packet into a high-sugar solution can shock the yeast and slow fermentation. Be nice and give them a minute to wake up before putting them to work. Pour the activated yeast into your must, give it a gentle stir, and seal with an airlock.

Primary Fermentation

Within a day or two, you should see bubbles forming and the airlock starting to burp. The strawberries will float to the top, forming a “cap” that you should gently push down and stir into the wine once a day to keep everything moist and prevent mold.

Primary fermentation is vigorous and exciting, and your house will smell like a strawberry festival. This stage lasts about 2-3 weeks until the bubbling slows significantly.

Racking to Secondary

When the vigorous bubbling slows and sediment becomes visible at the bottom, it is time to rack the wine into a secondary fermenter. Use your auto-siphon to transfer the wine, straining out all the strawberry pulp through a fine mesh strainer or cheesecloth as you go.

Leave the sediment (called lees) behind in the primary fermenter. Transfer to a narrow-neck carboy, top with an airlock, and store in a cool, dark place.

Secondary fermentation takes another 4-6 weeks as the wine slowly clears and finishes fermenting.

Bottling and Aging

Before bottling, taste your wine. If it is too dry for your preference, you can backsweeten by first stabilizing with Campden tablets, then adding simple syrup to taste. Siphon the clear wine into bottles, leaving behind any sediment, and cork or cap.

Strawberry wine benefits from aging, and while you can drink it young, I recommend waiting at least 3 months. At 6 months to a year, the wine really comes into its own with a smooth, rounded strawberry flavor.

Frequently Asked Questions

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Strawberry wine is just one of many ways to preserve a bumper crop of berries. If you have more strawberries than you know what to do with, try making old-fashioned strawberry jam or seedless strawberry jelly. Looking for more winemaking inspiration?

Browse my collection of 50+ winemaking recipes or explore 50+ mead recipes for honey wine variations. Other berry wines to try include raspberry wine, blueberry wine, and blackberry wine.