Chart Rewind: In 1996, Deana Carter’s ‘Strawberry’ Jammed Its Way Onto the Country Chart

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.

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.