For me... Clover is the king of food plots. I have had good luck with Imperial and red clover. One down side to the clovers, is they need a lot of moisture. If you live in an area that gets very hot and dry, the clover will go dormant.
It also needs lots of lime. A soil test is worth doing for the first thing. Your question about heavy browsing is a good one. If you have a lot of deer, a small food plot, will probably stay grazed to much to last on in to late fall and winter. Otherwise it can withstand cold weather to a degree. Deer will use it all winter, it greens up fairly early in spring also. As far as a second strip. I would go with alfalfa. It has a very deep root and can take dry weather a little better.