Chart Rewind: In 1996, Deana Carter’s ‘Strawberry’ Jammed Its Way Onto the Country Chart
Her unconventional debut went on to top Hot Country Songs and scored big on the awards circuit.
Black News 
It was a four-minute ballad in waltz time, not a typical choice for a first-ever single.
But Deana Carter picked a winner when “Strawberry Wine” provided her inaugural appearance on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart dated Aug. 17, 1996. Fourteen weeks later, it reached No. 1 on the list, where it stayed for a second week — not as long as the summer vacation in the song’s coming-of-age plot, but a great career starter nonetheless.
Related
Songwriter Matraca Berg (Martina McBride’s “Wild Angels,” Trisha Yearwood’s “Wrong Side of Memphis”) envisioned “Strawberry Wine” as a reflection of a visit to her grandparents’ Wisconsin farm, and when she shared the nostalgic concept with Gary Harrison (George Strait’s “I Hate Everything,” Yearwood’s “Everybody Knows”), she found a willing cowriter. Yearwood considered recording it for a time but ultimately passed.
Carter, working with producer Chris Farren (Corey Kent, Kevin Sharp), turned it into a signature as it won the Nashville Songwriters Association International’s song of the year, plus song and single of the year from the Country Music Association.
The song, certified double-Platinum by the RIAA, was released on Carter’s quintuple-Platinum debut album Did I Shave My Legs for This?, along with the 1997 Hot Country Songs No. 1s “We Danced Anyway” and “How Do I Get There.”
“Strawberry Wine” was subsequent cited in the lyrics of Thomas Rhett’s “What’s Your Country Song,” a No. 1 on the chart in 2021, and has been the subject of multiple other versions. The same year, Carter enlisted McBride, Lauren Alaina, Ashley McBryde, Vince Gill and Kylie Morgan for a 25th-anniversary remake, while this year it earned a dance remix by New York-based DJ Deerock.
