Strawberry Wine

4.65 from 34 votes

Homemade strawberry wine captures the essence of summer berries in a sweet, blush-pink wine that improves with age. This classic country wine recipe transforms fresh strawberries into bottles of sunshine you can enjoy all year long.

Prep Time1

Fermentation Time60

Total Time60 1

Course: Drinks

Cuisine: American

Servings: servings (4 bottles or 1 gallon)

Author: Ashley Adamant

Equipment

Ingredients

4-5 lbs strawberries fresh or frozen
2 lbs sugar
1 tsp acid blend
1 tsp yeast nutrient
1/8 to 1/4 tsp tannin powder
1/2 tsp Pectic Enzyme
water to fill
1 packet wine yeast see notes

Instructions

Place the strawberries and sugar into a large bowl or directly into your fermentation vessel. Allow the sugar to pull the juice from the strawberries for a few hours.
Add the remaining ingredients (except wine yeast) and fill with water to within a few inches of the top of the fermentation vessel. Give it a stir or shake to combine the ingredients.
Dissolve a packet of wine yeast in about 1/4 cup of water and allow it to rehydrate for at least 5 minutes. Add the dissolved yeast into the wine base and cap the mixture with a water lock.
Allow the mixture to ferment for about 10 to 12 days and then use a siphon to rack the wine into a new fermenter. Filter through a fine mesh strainer as you go to remove any strawberry chunks and leave any sediment behind.
Cap with an airlock and allow the strawberry wine to ferment in secondary for about 6 weeks, or until fermentation is complete, before bottling.
Bottle the wine, leaving behind the sediment. Cork bottles and allow it to age for at least a month, preferably 3-6 months before drinking.

Notes

Ingredient Substitutions

If you’d like to try to make this wine without normal pantry staples, here are a few substitutions (see the article on ingredient substitutions for more details):

1 tsp Acid Blend = 1 TABLEspoon lemon juice
⅛ tsp Tannin Powder = 1 cup strongly brewed black tea
1 tsp Yeast Nutrient = ¼ cup golden raisins (sultanas)
1 tsp Pectic Enzyme = freeze the fruit for 1 week before making the wine to break down pectin

The wine yeast is tricky to substitute, don’t use bread yeast. You can hope that your sultana raisins have wild wine yeast on their skins, and it may or may not work. If you only buy one thing, I’d strongly suggest a good wine yeast for best results.

Yeast Recommendations

Different yeast strains produce noticeably different results. Lalvin ICV-D47 is my top choice for strawberry wine because it enhances fruity and floral characteristics. Lalvin QA23 produces a cleaner, crisper wine. Red Star Premier Blanc is a reliable all-purpose option that also works well for mead. For a drier, higher alcohol wine, use Lalvin EC-1118 (champagne yeast). One packet treats 1 to 5 gallons.

Scaling the Recipe

This recipe makes 1 gallon (about 4 bottles). To make a half-gallon batch, divide all ingredients by 2. For a quart-sized mason jar batch, divide by 4. For a full 5-gallon batch (about 20 bottles), multiply everything by 5. One packet wine yeast works for all batch sizes, as it's just a starter population.

Strawberry Mead Variation

To make strawberry mead (melomel), substitute 2-3 pounds of honey for the sugar. Use a lighter honey like clover or wildflower to let the strawberry flavor shine through. Mead ferments more slowly than wine and benefits from even longer aging, so plan for 6-12 months before bottling.

Backsweetening

If your finished wine is too dry, you can backsweeten before bottling. First, stabilize the wine by adding 1 crushed Campden tablet and 1/2 teaspoon potassium sorbate per gallon. Wait 24 hours, then add simple syrup (equal parts sugar and water, heated until dissolved and cooled) to taste. Without stabilizing first, the yeast will ferment the added sugar and potentially cause bottles to pop.

Troubleshooting Cloudy Wine

Strawberry wine should clear to a beautiful rose-pink color within a few months. If it stays cloudy, the cause is usually pectin haze. Adding pectic enzyme at the start prevents this, but if you forgot, you can add it to the secondary fermenter. Cold crashing (chilling near freezing for a week) also helps particles settle. For stubborn haze, bentonite fining agents work well.

Aging Recommendations

Strawberry wine is drinkable as soon as fermentation completes, but patience pays off. At 3 months, the wine is pleasant but still rough around the edges. At 6 months, the flavors harmonize beautifully. At 1 year, you'll have a smooth, refined wine that rivals anything you could buy. Make enough bottles so you can taste along the way and still have some to age.

Storage

Store bottled wine on its side in a cool, dark place. A basement or closet away from heat sources works well. Ideal storage temperature is 50-60°F, but anywhere consistently below 70°F is fine. Properly corked bottles will keep for several years, though strawberry wine is best consumed within 2-3 years while the fruit character is still vibrant.

Nutrition