Thanks to everyone who helped make our annual Apple/Pear tasting a success. Thanks especially to Keith Borglum for arranging the venue at Ace Cidery. We had a cool place out of the sun and a chance to taste some wonderful ciders.

Here is a quick ranking from yesterday’s tasting of 53 apple varieties: Three tied for best of show- Gold Rush, Golden Russet and Pink Lady – followed by Crimson Gold, Golden Delicious, Pinata (Pinova), Roxbury Russet, Spigold, Ambrosia and Grimes Golden.

At the bottom were: Rhode Island Greening, Granny Smith and Hauer Pippin followed by Winesap, Pink Pearl, Black Twig and Red Delicious. Granny and RI Greening are both cooking apples. Hauer Pippin and Black Twig are far from ripe. Pink Pearl is past its prime by almost two months.

For those who don’t know how we judge our blind tasting, this is how we do it. Each variety has a number and is ranked from 1 to 10. A score of 7-10 is high and 1-4 is low. We total the high and low scores for each variety and take the difference for the final number. For instance, Wickson had 4 lows and 13 highs for a final score of 9.

Six apples had zero low scores – Gold Rush, Golden Russet, Pink Lady, Pinata, Grimes Golden and Ozark Gold while no apple had zero high scores.

Pear tasting is done similarly. Of the 16 varieties tasted, Dana Hovey was the clear winner followed by White Doyenne, Bosc and Red Bartlett. Winter Nellis was at the bottom, but it is a winter pear and needs more time to ripen. Dana Hovey and White Doyenne had zero low scores and Winter Nellis had zero high scores.

Download Complete 2014 Apple Tasting Results

Download Complete 2014 Pear Tasting Results