Strawberry wine is a bit of an oddity. Easy recipe but labour intensive at the start though a dream when it clears and matures. It can be chaptilized into champagne easily and excellently. Good as a sweet or dry wine it stands as a good fruit wine that does not need to be compared to grape based rosé. The still wine though lovely (and quick and easy… did I mention that?) leaves a little to be desired.

I have not been able to push strawberries past good to great except when it becomes champagne. As I have plans for sparkling wines made from gooseberry and possibly the grapes I stole I want a top notch still strawberry wine that can stand on its own. Strawberries are not like other berries or grapes with tannin rich skins and a long period of maceration.

STRAWBERRY WINE. THE BANANA-MASS EXPERIMENT

Two experiments were started last year and the first I thought would be best for a still wine. This added banana to add some body with polyunsaccharide sugars that are unfermentable by wine yeast. As they are long chain sugars they act like tannin adding mouth feel. This was made as a still wine and stabilised with metabisulphate so totally unable to be made into champagne but on reflection this would make a great sparkling wine. Arse.

STRAWBERRY AND RHUBARB WINE RECIPE

The second experiment was cutting the strawberry with rhubarb and adding a small amount of raisins. This I thought would be an even better base for champagne as the oxalic acidity would move it towards a traditional champagne taste. Just as with the banana I got it all wrong and the rhubarb addition seems to make a better still wine. Luckily this has happily been bottled as a still wine. Though it needs to mature further the taste is smoother with the rhubarb complimenting the strawberry. Ms Gazette who is far smarterer than wot me is described the rhubarb as “cutting through the implied sweetness of the strawberry creating a more complex taste.“ Acids seem balanced with a less puckering taste and the overt fruitiness of the strawberry is tempered by the floral addition of the rhubarb. It seems nice and complex rather than lacking sweetness due to over domineering strawberries of traditional strawberry wine.

So the moral of the story seems to be never trust your instincts and always ask your partner to describe tastes. All I have to do now is work out how long it takes to mature to perfection. Strawberry can mature in nine months while rhubarb can take up to two years. If any one has any experience send it my way.