Adam's Apples

Today I get to eat two excellent modern apples (" worth seeking !") that share a particular quality. Competently managed, they both deliver peak eating in the spring. Lady Alice , at right, has saturated flavors with wonderful malt notes and a substantial crunch. GoldRush presents pear and banana along with a dash of citrus. 

LOVE THE ONES YOU'RE WITH Lemonade , above, is a right good apple, well balanced and eminently worth choosing . But the main reason I was glad to see this variety last month is geographic. My Lemonades grew in New Zealand and were picked in the spring. They are half a year fresher than the other apples in stores today. And, you can taste it.

These two modern varieties rise to the top in the off season. Their distinctive flavors set them apart from the older Gala-Braeburn generation. But which is best?

April is the cruelest month for apples, so far from the harvest yet too early for fresher reinforcements from the southern hemisphere. But in April, two varieties stand out: Remarkable Lady Alice , which improves (to a point) in storage, and the phenomenal Gold Rush , perhaps the greatest keeper ever . Since I am lucky to have a supply of both this year, this head-to-head taste-off became inevitable.

When she is good, she is very very good. But when she has not been allowed to mature in storage, Lady Alice is starchy and blah. Alice is fabulous in late March and in April. And yet, the ladies keep showing up in the supermarkets in February. This year, in January.

They're available now. But are they any good? Lady Alice made her New England debut in the spring of 2010, leaving a very favorable impression. I awarded her two stars ("worth seeking") for great texture and rich and unusual flavors. That this variety needed to sit until March or April to reach her peak was a feature, not a bug; having something this good to bite at that time of year was a welcome treat amid the tired supermarket standards. Starting in 2011, reports began to trickle in here of this variety for sale in February. Or, I should perhaps say, complaints: blandness, bitterness, a "chemical taste," and general dissatisfaction.

Reports of disappointing examples of the Lady Alice apple began to trickle in mid February. This new variety was really a treat last year, crisp with unusual flavors, and for sale in March. One reader this year, writing February 13, called Alice bland. Another checked in with accounts of Alices that were bitter .

Flushed with the success of my last odd-couple comparison, I again explore a match between two unlikely partners. Lady Alice began as a chance seedling while tiny Wickson is the product of an inspired breeding cross. Nonetheless the two varieties overlap in color, texture, and taste to suggest the possibility of an amiable pairing. In particular, Alice has an unusual malt note and the same “nibble it down to the core” quality I found in Wickson. Lady Alice is an attractive medium-sized apple, slightly ribbed, with a streaky blush over yellow tinted with a little green. The lenticels are large and evenly spaced. Wickson's blush is a deeper cherry red, but similar, over a similar yellow and, like Lady Alice, with some translucent wash and darker saturated streaks. Tiny Wickson's shape is also similar, with a little ribbing...

To my surprise and pleasure, there's a new variety to try. In March. I am holding a medium-sized apple with an orange-red blush over yellow that is tinted with a little green. There are darker red streaks in the wash of the blush, and tiny dark lenticels that are widely spaced. The fruit is well-formed, slightly ribbed, and firm. There's a little russet in the stem well and the calyx is loosely closed. Her faint sweet aroma suggests both apples and pears.