Sweetser's Apple Barrel

I am lucky to live in a town and a region with a long history of apple growing. I'm even luckier to live just down the street from Sweetser's Apple Barrel. There are lots of places around here where you can buy or pick good apples. The thing that makes Sweetser's particularly notable is that you can get so many different kinds of apples there. Mid-October is prime time.


You can't quite see it in the lame photo above, taken in failing light with a slow shutter speed and no support for my shaky hand, but that list of "Today's Varieties" includes, among the more usual suspects: Spencer, Jonafree, Snowapple, Brock, Liberty, Spartan, Rolfe, Wolfe River, Nodhead, Russet, Red Spy, Mutsu, Ben Davis, and Blue Pearmain. Be still, my heart!


The sight and taste of these apples, or even just knowing that they're still there (or there again) makes me happy. We don't have to go to the wilderness for it to be of great value to us; it just has to be there. I feel the same way about uncommon local apples. The analogy only goes so far, of course, when someone has to stay in business. Fortunately it is not a hard sell to get me to buy a bunch of these apples every year.

Sometimes I bite into one of the old, heirloom varieties, such as a Sheephead I had in Vermont one day that tasted like a dessicated kitchen sponge, and say to myself, "Yup, now I know why you never see this one anymore." That's part of the adventure. Other times, as with the Blue Pearmain I had from Sweetser's last week - dryish and firm, with a fascinating texture like underripe honeydew and overtones of acetone in the scent of its juice - you have to just shake your head and say, "This is bizarre ... but so good." If you are not an adventurous eater, try the Spencer. Snappy, juicy, and hard like a fresh Mac or Macoun, it also has a hint of the sweet, spicy, floral qualities of a Delicious. It's is a favorite of everyone in my family.

Florid

We opened one of the last of our bottles from the great 2001 German vintage the other night. We had a lesson in how radically wines can change in a relatively short time. Last time we had this, probably two or three years ago, it was a creamy, silky thing with a lot of fat, dipping a bit toward the sweet arm of the sugar/acid scales. Now it is a sere, focused streak - a missile and no longer a bomb, if you'll pardon the militarism.

(As I recall, we first had this wine with pancakes. I won't tell if that was at breakfast or not. But even if it was, get a load of the alcohol content: 7.5 %. When's the last time you saw a number that low on a wine from someone's hot list, along side the latest Rhone Ranger or Spanish phenom? Some beers have more kick than that!)

The first thing that's beautiful about this wine is its label. See for yourself. The florid is baked into everything. (Although this is actually a very clean German label compared to something like Grünhaus or von Simmern.) Florian Weingart! A name like that is just too good to be true. We may have a state named after florid, but in Germany it's burned in way deeper than that.



I know this is my very first wine blog entry ever, and so I should hold back on hokey wine-speak. This is the time to hook readers with my sensible, down-to-earth approach and matter-of-fact style, right? Make wine writing safe for children and newbies. Probably, but the hell with that. This wine is way too interesting to privilege marketing over truth.

Imagine a stony stream bed. There's a trickle of cool water running down it. On the surface of the water are pieces of lemon peel and brittle autumn leaves. Along the banks are honeysuckle bushes dense with blossoms. (Yes, I do know that they don't bloom in the fall.) That's how this wine smells. That's really all you need to know. That's the important part. If you must hear about the rest, I'll just tell you that it has perfect gobsmacking juicy/puckery balance. There are notes of grapefruit, custard, tea, cider, and lemon meringue pie on the palate. The finish is reasonably long. Hard to tell because it tends to get interrupted quickly by the next sip. So... importer Terry Theise (and Herr Weingart): Thank you. Keep 'em coming!