Strawberry Wine
Strawberry Wine is one of the best known and loved English Country wines. It is easy to make and ideal for summer garden parties and picnics.
Homemade Strawberry Wine: Ingredients: 7 pounds whole fresh strawberries, (fresh picked, if possible), washed and hulled, 2 gallons boiling water, Juice of 1 lemon, 5 pounds sugar. Preparation: In a large earthenware crock, mash the strawberries. Cover with boiling water, add lemon juice, and quickly stir for about two minutes. Cover with a clean linen cloth. Let rest in a cool, dark place, stirring daily for one week.
After one week, strain the mixture through a double-layer of cheesecloth into a large, clean bowl, discarding strawberry pulp. Combine strawberry liquid with the sugar, stirring to dissolve sugar. Pour into cleaned crock and let stand another week, stirring daily. After the second week, pour the strawberry liquid into 1-gallon glass wine bottles and cork loosely. Let rest in a cool, dark place for 3 months.When wine is clear and no longer fermenting pour into individual bottles, cork, and age at least 1 year before drinking this delicious strawberry wine.
Strawberry Wine : 3lbs. fresh strawberries, 1/2 lb. chopped golden raisins, 2-1/2 lbs. light brown sugar, 2 tsp. citric acid, 1/4 tsp. grape tannin, water to make 1 gallon, wine yeast & nutrient Place all ingredients except yeast in crock. Crush fruit with hands and cover with 5 pints boiling water. Stir with wooden paddle to dissolve sugar and simultaneously mash the strawberries. When cooled to 80-85 degrees F., add yeast. Cover and stir daily. Strain on 7th day, transfer to secondary fermentation vessel, top up to one gallon, fit fermentation trap, and set aside. Rack after 30 days and again after additional 30 days. Add additional one cup sugar and 1/3 tsp citric acid dissolved in 1/2 cup water and ferment another 30 days. Rack, ferment additional 30 days, then rack again.Bottle when clear. Allow to age at least 9 months.
To drink a strawberry wine is to experience something unexpected. Many people imagine strawberry wine to be thick and sweet, much like what you’d find on the table at IHop. While I’m sure there are many strawberry wines that have been made sweet, its real strength lies in its ability to taste remarkably good even when it is completely dry. This is an oddity for most fruit wines since they usually need to be sweetened back at least a little to help retain their fruity character and in some cases to round off an undesirable rough edge.
Strawberry Wine with Food: Strawberry Wine is ideal with dessert (particularly the sweet ‘Cornish Berries’ Strawberry Wine), salads and barbecues. A sparkling strawberry wine is ideally suited for consumption at the beginning of a meal or party – Champagne style. It provides a great talking point and whets the appetite for a first course.
For England strawberry wine is an ideal wine to make for the amateur and the professional. Strawberries are easy to grow in large numbers in the English climate, and to make wine from this fruit is fairly easy and purely requires some patience and a bit of trial and error. The taste can be made pleasant enough so really it deserves a much better reputation than it has.
