The Yummy Fruit Search

Varieties suited to home-growing, reaching peak flavor when fully ripe, are many, varied, wonderful and improving every year, as demonstrated over the past nine years in the Dave Wilson Nursery fruit tastings.

In 1993, Dave Wilson Nursery began a program to inform the nursery industry and the public about exquisite, indescribable fruit flavors that exist beyond contemporary grocery store and standard home garden varieties. The number of varieties available is overwhelming (see Guide), so an objective evaluation of the most well-known, and the best of the specialty and new varieties would provide valuable information to anyone recommending or choosing fruit trees.

The business reasons to offer formal fruit tastings and publish a report seemed obvious: if retail sales personnel were more knowledgeable about fruit varieties, they would be more effective selling fruit trees. Most importantly, if the consistently superior varieties were the ones most often recommended and planted, favorable word-of-mouth would increase the demand for fruit trees. The story of the Dave Wilson Nursery fruit tastings thus began in July, 1993.

A Dave Wilson Nursery fruit tasting consists of 15 to 35 people seated at tables, sharing samples of the current season’s selections.

One fruit variety is served at a time. Before cutting, the fruit’s appearance is rated (do pretty, redblushed peaches really taste better than pale yellow ones?)

The tasters are encouraged to taste both a firm fruit and a softer one.

The one they prefer is rated for acid content (tartness), sugar content, firmness/softness, flavor and overall appeal. Scores are recorded.

To eliminate preconceptions, varieties are not identified by name until everyone has finished scoring the sample. Crackers and water are provided to cleanse the palate between samples. The optimal number of pieces to taste in a single setting is 30 to 35, and tasters are asked to forgo eating just before a tasting.

Most of the fruit comes from the collection of over 1,000 stone and pome fruit varieties at the Dave Wilson Nursery, which is augmented each year by new experimental varieties from Zaiger Genetics of Modesto, California. The tastings may also include interesting, specialty or new varieties from other sources such as high quality fresh fruit growers and hobbyists.

Occasionally, the pickers sneak in a selection or two from the local grocery store for fun.

Each year after the last tasting, the data is re-compiled and a new or supplemental fruit tasting report is published.

The goal is to pick fully tree-ripe fruit — sometimes easier said than done.

Tasting dates are chosen three months or more in advance of the fruit being ripe.

Four tasting dates per year are selected by studying the harvest date chart, looking for weeks where more fruit tasting data is needed and for varieties yet to be tested.

The objective is to present an inspiring collection, including best-tasting, popular and unusual varieties for that part of the season.

When harvest time arrives, however, the varieties available and ready are not necessarily those expected.

Harvest dates, variety sequence and fruit set vary from year to year based upon the whims of Mother Nature.

Sometimes, a wonderful peach or nectarine near the end of its season is picked soft-ripe, three or four days before tasting day and put in cold storage.

When presented to the tasters, however, it is apt to be bruised, squishy, oozing, odd-tasting and stale. It’s always disappointing when a good variety suffers a bad rating because it was not presented at its best.

Tasters are advised that one sample isn’t sufficient to form an opinion of a variety, but a strong first impression is often long-lasting. Inspite of the dangers, it’s hard to resist the desire to share all the varieties — they all have special traits, whether climate adaptability or fruit quality, and most of them are delicious when picked at the appropriate time. In any case, it is always a challenge to deliver 30-plus exceptional or representative selections of fruit for tasting day.

From 1993 to 1999, twenty fruit tastings were held at the Dave Wilson Nursery with participants (mostly retail nursery personnel) driving in from all over Northern and Central California.

In 1999, it was decided the nursery should hold tastings in different parts of the state to give more customers a chance to attend. Also, in locations more accessible than the nursery, tastings could be offered to the public. The formal session, which provides data for the fruit tasting report, is held in the morning; the afternoon session is open to all comers.

Much is learned from the tasters. Most notably, there are wide differences in people’s tastes. Some people love the low-acid, mild-flavored fruit that others find bland.

Over the years we have observed that the more complex fruits tend to generate widely varied ratings.

Tart-sweet fruit (not lacking acid or sugar) with strange flavors can be the best ever for some tasters and the worst for others. It seems that tasters over the age of, say, 35-40 like their fruit with a balance of acid and sugar and soft ripe (juice running down their arms).

Younger tasters more often like their fruit firm to hard (at least prior to the tasting experience); they seem to think that good fruit has less to do with flavor, more to do with texture.

One welcome observation is that certain fruit varieties tend to receive top ratings every year, under all conditions — these are the ones I most often recommend. Certainly, the greatest benefit from the nine years of tasting is the opportunity to recommend to the fruit tree grower the most consistently appealing varieties.

Of the many high-scoring stone and pome fruits,
the varieties listed below have been especially consistent.

All fruits designated as
“LOW-ACID SWEET”
are a combination of tart and sweet.

• Apples
  • Ashmeads Kernel Apple
  • Pink Lady Apple
  • Red Fuji Apple ( BC2 type ) (LOW-ACID SWEET)
• Apricots
  • Blenheim Apricot (LOW-ACID SWEET)
• Cherries
  • Craigs Crimson Cherry (LOW-ACID SWEET)
  • Utah Giant Cherry (LOW-ACID SWEET)
  • Van Cherry
• Nectarines
  • Arctic Glo White Nectarine
  • Arctic Jay White Nectarine (LOW-ACID SWEET)
  • Arctic Rose Nectarine (LOW-ACID SWEET)
  • Double Delight Yellow Nectarine
  • Fantasia Yellow Nectarine
  • Heavenly White Nectarine
  • Independence Nectarine
  • Snow Queen White Nectarine
• Peaches
  • Arctic Supreme White Peach
  • Compact Flavorette Yellow Peach
  • Indian Free White Peach
  • Mid Pride Yellow Peach
  • O'Henry Yellow Peach
  • Red Baron Yellow Peach
  • Snow Beauty White Peach (LOW-ACID SWEET)
• Asian Pears
  • Hosui Asian Pear (LOW-ACID SWEET)
  • Kikusui Asian Pear (LOW-ACID SWEET)
• Plums
  • Emerald Beauty Plum
  • Weeping Santa Rosa Plum
• Pluots™
• (A Pluot™ is a complex hybrid of plum and apricot
       developed by Zaiger Genetics of Modesto California.)
  • Dapple Dandy Pluot
  • Flavor King Pluot
  • Flavor Queen Pluot
  • Flavor Supreme Pluot

Information regarding variety recommendations for specific areas and climates is usually available from local nurseries. Locations of Dave Wilson Nursery dealers are listed at www.davewilson.com

The report includes a top ten list for each of the tastings, top overall scores by fruit type, comparative scores by fruit type (consensus favorite fruits: sweet cherry, nectarine and Pluot ), a harvest chart of top-scoring varieties and an extensive alphabetical list of varieties with their fruit tasting scores. Fruit hobbyists might enjoy re-compiling the data — for example, digging out the all-time top flavor scores: 7.8 (Flavor King Pluot ), 7.0 (Snow Beauty white peach), 7.0 (Liz’s Late yellow nectarine), 7.9 (Arctic Jay white nectarine).

A condensed version of the report can be viewed on the web.

Dave Wilson Nursery invites all Garden Compass readers to attend the fruit tastings. Nursery tradespeople, Master Gardeners, garden writers/editors or members of California Rare Fruit Growers may contact the nursery about being panelists in the formal sessions. Everyone else eager to experience wonderful fruit, please plan to attend one or more afternoon open sessions.

For the full fruit tasting experience, it is necessary only to bring your tastebuds and a desire to encounter some of life’s finest offerings. Connoisseur and novice alike will have new opportunities to savor popular, unusual, old, specialty and recently released varieties. And if Mother Nature cooperates, you’ll join an exclusive club whose members have tasted yet-to-be-released fruit varieties, known only by code numbers — the experimentals.