Re: pure strawberry wine plans

Jul 09, 2003 5 Replies

Just as a postscript to all you 100%ers. I make my strawberry wine with added water using 20lbs for 5 galons imperial. I always freeze my freshly picked strawberries for a few days before starting off the initial fermentation. When the fruit has defrosted the juice extraction is virtually 100% without sqeezing etc and the fruit remains are virtually white/grey. I add a can of red grape juice concentrate to the must and then adjust the sugar so that I ferment out to about 12.5 % abv.



My actual reason for posting is the fact that the bouquet of my wine( more like an intense aroma ) is extremely pronounced and I am just starting to use my July 2002 wine which is just right for summer consumption just lightly chilled. I have found that it will certaily survive for at least another year without degrading at all --- don't know beyond that 'cos I have never had any last that long!



So isn't the pure juice bouquet and indeed taste overpowering. Or is it just not any different?



I have been make my still strawberry like this for a fairly long time (20 years +) and I also use the same ratio of fruit (but without the grape juice) to make my "method champagnoise" sparkling strawberry which is quite excellent ( but time consuming and needs a lot of tlc! -- it normally takes a good 18 months before I could consider drinking it ) as a "brut" sparkler!


Being the original starter of this thread, I think I will update everyone on my 15 kilos of strawberries ended up.

I crushed the berries in a small basket press I have, after hulling all of them... I heated the pulp and juice for about 20 minutes and kept it around 50 celsius... so I had about 19L of pulp & juice... I pitched the yeast, and let it ferment for 3 days with the pulp in there... I had about 10 litres of juice by the end of the three days, so I syphoned that off, and put the pulp in a pillow case and pressed that until it was pretty much dry. When I checked my readings, I neededd to add more sugar to get the potential alcohol up... so I used strawberry concentrate and water. Not quite pure strawberry, however I couldn't bring myself to pick another 15 kilos :) However, the wine is fermenting quite nicely and smells marvelous and has a beautiful colour. My notes aren't with me or I'd share my numbers, however my initial strawberries were pretty sweet and flavourful, much moreso than the ones in the grocery store. I'm pleased for now :)

Just bottled my first 1 gallon batch of strawberry wine from 4-5 pounds of locally picked strawberries (which I had frozen before I made the wine). There was a little left over which I sampled - it was very flavorful, smelled like strawberries, and had a very pretty red color. I'm very happy with it, so much so that I'm starting a second batch today from some leftover frozen berries from last year. I don't know that I'd get a good wine from the berries I picked this year because we had such a screwy spring - the berries don't taste as good as last year's crop. Darlene

Stanley Anderson (the art of making wine) reports having done some experimentation (and received validation from others) with how much fruit (other than grapes) to use. Gallon batches made from 2-4 lbs mature quickly (a few months) and may not tast much different than vinifera grape wine; whereas 10 lb batches mature slowly (12 months +), but have a strong fruit flavor.

The few batches of country w>>I believe the discussion here was whether you get

Im packaging in 500ml bottles. You need to recalculate:)

Join the Discussion

Have something to add? Share your thoughts — no account required.

Didn't find your answer?

Ask the community — no account required