Adam's Apples

This Dutch apple has an attractive dark orange-red blush over a muted green that blends with sandpaper-colored russet. Large lenticels are similarly russeted. I've only got one sample, a large medium or small large, but have no idea how typical its size may may be. Karmijn de Sonnaville is an offspring of the exceptional Cox's Orange Pippin and shares some of its qualities. The flesh is fine grained and light yellow, and the flavors are balanced but with some acidity. Some Cox-like flavors, such as orange and mango, pair with a peppery spiciness.

David D'Angelo of Hawk Farm in Maine gave me a few of these earlier this year, the best examples I have had yet. I'm not replacing my 2010 tasting notes for Black Oxford, but here is a post script. These were nice and dark, a deep red with both purple and mahogany overtones. Many light lenticels of varying sizes are sprinkled across the dark like stars in the night sky. Biting in shows dense white flesh with streaks of red from the richly colored peel.

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Today we borrow a word from the Very Serious World of wine and ask, is it a useful way to think about apples? Nutty, with a hint of oak? (Orleans Reinette)

This small medium apple is light yellow, sometimes with a green undertone. The eponymous blush is a very light orange red wash with specks of intense color.  The result is like a poorly mixed oil-and-water emulsion or flecks of pigment in oil. It's a very striking effect.

Oops, no photo for this one! So, picture a big yellow apple, ribbed, with a very partial light orange blush that is streaky. David D'Angelo, an apple farmer from Maine, shared one of these with me in November. Our sample has cracked a bit around the crown where the apple grew too fast "like an heirloom tomato," as David said. There are large dark lenticels and a cidery aroma with more than a hint of the Golden Delicious. Star Song has light yellow flesh, fine-grained, with mild well-balanced qualities that showcase a hit of banana and, we agreed, something else tropical (though we could not lay our tastebuds around exactly what).

Pomme Gris (left) meets Ashmead's Kernel in a medley of fall colors I was lucky this fall to bag two superlative russet varieties, Pomme Gris and Ashmead's Kernel. These were the best examples of these varieties I have ever had. So which is best?