Oct 5, 2008 11:13 pm US/Central
Finding Minnesota: Apple Picking In Lake City
LAKE CITY, Minn. (WCCO) ―
Fall in Minnesota is such a wonderful season. The leaves begin to turn, children start thinking about picking out their pumpkins and its apple harvest time.
Lake City is a wonderful place to visit any time of year. Its views of the Mississippi River and Lake Pepin are worth the trip alone. But in late September and early October, there's something special going on here. It's harvest season.
"From the time the first Honeycrisp on a tree is ripe, until the time the last one is ripe is really about a month," said Dennis Courtier, president of Pepin Heights Orchards. "But each individual apple is at its best for maybe a week, maybe 10 days. So we have to pick them maybe three or four times in order to get the fruit when it's at its best."
Pepin Heights Orchards sit just above this lakeside community and its 300 acres produce about a dozen varieties of apples.
"We grow probably 25 percent of the apples that are grown in Minnesota," said Courtier.
"Was Honeycrisp the thing that put you on the map?" asked WCCO's Jeanette Trompeter.
"Well, Harrelson put us on the map, actually," said Courter, referring to the Harrelson apples that grew in popularity and were grown in Lake City in the late 1980s.
Courtier grew up on these orchards. He talks about apples like a vintner will talk about a fine wine.
"Honeycrisps that are grown on top of this hill, for instance, taste very different from Honeycrisps that are grown, let's say, in the bottom of the Yakama Valley where it gets to be 112 degrees. This is what they're supposed to taste like when they're grown in the right place," he said.
The little town of Lake City is a giant in the world of Honeycrisp apples.
"Up until last year, I believe, we grew, packed, shipped and sold more Honeycrisp than anybody else in the country. We have friends now out in Washington state that probably have taken that title away," Courtier said.
And that's okay by him. Courtier cares less about mass production than tapping the taste buds of apple aficionados.
"In fact, we go all over the world looking for new apple varieties," he said.
He's all excited about the latest variety at Pepin Heights: the Sweet Tango.
"Honeycrisp is actually one of the parents, and I think it's probably better than Honeycrisp," Courtier said.
You won't find it in grocery stores until next year, but you can find it in Lake City.
At Pepin Heights you can't pick your own, but there are all kinds of varieties you'll definitely want to taste. And you can do that, fresh off the tree, just down the hill at the Pepin Heights Apple Store.
On weekends, it is also a tasting room, and also on most days during harvest season. Visitors can shake the chill of fall with some fresh apple cider, and if that doesn't do the trick, perhaps a hot apple pie will.
It's tough to say so long to summertime in Minnesota, but the sweet fall traditions to be found in Lake City make the transition to winter something worth celebrating.
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