Hoople's Antique Gold **

What a marvelous name! What do you think it means?

These conical light yellow apples are on the large side of small, classically shaped with only a hint of ribs. There's a coppery crown of russet and some brown around the base.

With its two-toned russet, this apple does indeed suggest antique gold. For a blush, there is a very pale orange flush on the sunward side. The stem is quite thin.

Hoople's flesh is halfway between coarse and fine, light yellow, crisp, and crunchy.

Its light sweet flavors include cane sugar and a hint of pear, vanilla, and generic citrus, very light and pleasant.

So, that name. There really was a Hoople, who developed and popularized this variety (ca. 1960) at the Hoople family orchard in Ohio.

The Long and Winding Road

Hoople's is actually a sport of Golden Delicious. That fact flummoxed me for quite a while: I actually drafted most of the above more than seven years ago.

Sports, genetic mutations to budwood rather than the result of pollination, usually differ only a little from their single parent. Hoople's is rather more distinct than that.

Consequently, when I tasted this one in the fall of 2013, I wondered if there was not some mix-up. Mine came from the research orchard at UC Santa Cruz, where many varieties grow cheek by jowl.

I did not publish.

Then in the fall of 2019, a mystery apple came my way from Will, a home gardener near Worcester in Massachusetts.

Though that sample was a little unripe, it was very like.

In particular, both samples differed from Golden Delicious in the same way.

That, and the circumstances surrounding the tree, convince me that both were not only the same fruit, but also that the original identification of the variety in 2013 was correct. Hoople's.

(I'm not sure that Will agrees.)

Usually, sports boast only minor changes from the original version. Typically, they are redder.

But a few, such as Hoople's and another Golden sport called Lucky Rose Golden, are truly different varieties.

Note how the names of both nod at their Gold-inflected parent.

Nearly eight years in the making, I'm pleased to share Hoople's with you today.

Links

• Will's apple
• Sport
• Lucky Rose Golden
• Mama-Papa Golden
• Hoople's Fruit Farm