WineCrisp Apples

Medium to medium-large.44 pounds — roughly 200 grams, so two to two and a half to the pound.

It also gives dimensions of 6 to 6.5 cm across and 6.0 to 6.3 cm long, which describes a rather smaller apple than 200 grams implies. The two figures in that document do not quite agree; ours generally run 155 to 240 grams.

Round-oblong — near enough as tall as it is wide, which is unusual. Most apples are noticeably flattened.

The shape and the colour together are what earned it the name: the patent and the release paper both note the resemblance to Winesap.

It is thick and matte, with a dry, parchment-like feel rather than a wax shine. Some people love it; some peel it.

It is entirely edible and it carries a good deal of the spice in the flavour. Peel it for a refined tart if the texture bothers you; leave it on for everything else.

The breeder gives the test directly: pick it “when the background has turned greenish yellow in colour”. On a fruit that is 100 per cent dark red you have to look carefully to find the background at all — check around the stem and the calyx.

The patent records a starch index of 6.27 on the 1–9 scale at its picking date, which is a properly mature apple rather than a green one.

Yes, distinctly, and this is one of the useful things to know about it. Nursery experience is that the flavour peaks about a month after harvest.

An apple eaten straight off the tree will be hard and a bit closed-up. Give it three or four weeks in the fridge and the flavour opens. It is a milder version of what GoldRush does over several months.

At a normal rate. It is not one of the slow-browning varieties, though the dense flesh means a cut surface dries more slowly than a soft apple’s.

For slices that hold their colour on a platter, use AutumnCrisp, SnowSweet or RubyFrost.

It was bred to be one, and it is. The breeders set out to make an apple that people would choose for the flavour alone, and WineCrisp is what they got — winey, spicy and genuinely complex.

Be prepared for how hard it is, though. If you dislike a really firm apple, this one will be a shock.

Modest and spicy rather than perfumed. It is not an aromatic apple in the way McIntosh or Macoun are.

What it has instead is length: the flavour carries on after you have swallowed, which is the part people mean when they call it complex.

Not by parentage, and the name has misled a great many people. WineCrisp is named for resembling Winesap in shape and colour, plus its crisp flesh — the release paper says so explicitly.

Winesap is a nineteenth-century American heirloom of unknown origin. WineCrisp is a 1968 or 1969 breeding cross. They are two quite different apples that happen to look alike.

No. It is a conventional cross between two breeding selections, made by hand in the late 1960s and grown out from seed.

That is ordinary plant breeding, the same way apples have been improved for centuries. It just took a very long time — forty years from the cross to the name.

Yes, like any fruit — a rinse under cool running water and a dry cloth. No soap, no detergent, no produce wash.

Wash it as you would any apple.

The skin colours up to a deep purple-red that reads almost black, and it is matte rather than glossy — there is a natural bloom on it, like a plum.

People genuinely mistake it for a plum in the box. It is one of the darkest apples grown anywhere.

Rinse it under cold water and rub it with your hand, as you would any fresh fruit. The dusty bloom is natural and harmless — it will come off and the skin underneath is glossier than you expect.

No soap and no produce wash. Plain cold water is all it needs.

Some small children find it a real effort to bite, and that is worth knowing before you buy a case for a family.

Slicing solves it. Cut into wedges it is perfect — and the slices hold up in a lunchbox better than almost anything.

Yes. It starts sharp and winey, and over a long storage season it gradually mellows and reads sweeter and rounder.

If you love the winey character, eat it between November and February. If you prefer it gentler, it is still excellent in March.

It is among the hardest apples in commerce — harder than RubyFrost, which is itself considered a very firm apple. They nicknamed it “the Rock” for a reason.

Every apple softens a little over a long storage season, but WineCrisp starts so hard that it stays crunchy far longer than most.

The patent gives an average of about 0.44 pounds, roughly 200 grams. That is two to two and a half apples to the pound.

We should say that the patent’s own dimensions — 6 to 6.5 cm across — describe a smaller apple than 200 grams. The document is not internally consistent on this point and we would rather flag that than pick whichever number suits us.

Up to seven months in proper cold storage, and about a month at room temperature. Some growers report even longer.

That is exceptional for any apple, and it is the main reason people plant it. A WineCrisp bought in November is still worth eating in spring.

Mid to late October in most orchards, and it hangs on the tree well for a couple of weeks after it is ready, which gives growers a comfortable picking window.

Timing moves a lot with where it is grown — Virginia picks it in September, upstate New York in late October. See Harvest Times for where our season stands.

WineCrisp is the trademarked selling name. The variety’s actual name is ‘Co-op 31’, its breeding number from the programme that raised it.

You will see nurseries write it as WineCrisp™ (Co-op 31). Same apple, two names.

A nursery does. Because Co-op 31 is patented, a nursery must be licensed to propagate it and pays a royalty on every tree, which is passed on in the price.

Planting a licensed tree you bought is entirely fine. Grafting your own from someone else’s wood while the patent runs is not.

Two halves, both literal. The wine is colour and shape: the release paper says the fruit is “similar in shape and color to ‘Winesap’”, and the breeders describe it as the colour of a deep red wine. The crisp is the flesh, which is genuinely hard and stays that way.

Both halves of the name are doing real work, which is not always true of an apple.

No. It is an apple, the name refers to the colour, and nothing about it involves grapes or wine.

It does make good hard cider, which is the nearest the name comes to being true.

No. Winesap is a nineteenth-century American heirloom of unknown origin, and a genuine triploid. WineCrisp is Co-op 31, a modern bred cultivar from the PRI programme, patented as USPP 20,437.

They look alike, which is exactly why WineCrisp got its name. They are not related.

The Co-op series is the numbering used by the PRI cooperative breeding programme — Purdue, Rutgers and the University of Illinois. Co-op 31 is the 31st selection advanced under that scheme.

You already know several of its siblings: Co-op 30 is Enterprise, Co-op 38 is GoldRush, Co-op 39 is CrimsonCrisp.

No to both. Cosmic Crisp is WA 38 from Washington State University. CrimsonCrisp is Co-op 39 — a genuine sibling from the same programme, but a different apple: earlier, brighter red, and spicier.

“Crisp” on the end of an apple name is a naming convention now, not a description.

Because it is extraordinarily hard — 21.9 pounds on the patent’s penetrometer — and because its seed parent is a breeding selection actually named Rock 41-12.

The nickname is a coincidence that happens to be accurate, which is our favourite kind.

No. It is a patented modern cultivar released commercially in 2009, although the cross behind it was made around 1968.

Its ancestry does include heirlooms — Rome Beauty, Jonathan and Cox’s Orange Pippin all appear in it — which is where the old-fashioned depth of flavour comes from.

All three spellings are in use. The trademark is written WineCrisp™; nurseries and retailers vary.

The cultivar name underneath never changes: Co-op 31.

The trademark and the patent belong to the cooperating institutions of the PRI programme — the Illinois, New Jersey and Indiana agricultural experiment stations, which is to say the University of Illinois, Rutgers and Purdue.

Licensed nurseries propagate it under that arrangement and pay a royalty per tree.

You will see both dates and they describe different events. The selection was advanced and numbered within the programme decades before it reached the public; the cultivar release paper and the commercial launch both came in 2009, and the plant patent issued in the same period.

Introduced in 2009 is the accurate wording for when you could buy a tree.

The PRI cooperative apple breeding programme — the Illinois, New Jersey and Indiana agricultural experiment stations, working through the University of Illinois, Rutgers and Purdue.

The cultivar release paper names L. F. Hough of Rutgers as the person who made the cross, and Schuyler S. Korban of the University of Illinois led the release. Co-op 31 was the programme’s 19th named cultivar.

Rock 41-12 × PRI 841-103 — two unpatented breeding selections rather than named varieties. Both are given in the plant patent.

Behind them sit Rome Beauty, Jonathan, Cox’s Orange Pippin, Red Rome and Malus floribunda 821.

Here the two primary sources disagree, and we would rather show you that than pick one. The plant patent says the cross was made in 1968 in Illinois, with the seedling selected at Urbana and first asexually propagated in 1970.

The HortScience cultivar release paper says the cross was made by L. F. Hough at Rutgers in 1969, and spells the seed parent Rock 41-112 rather than Rock 41-12. Both are refereed primary documents. We cannot reconcile them and we are not going to pretend we can.

Partly biology, partly caution. A seedling takes years to fruit, then needs propagating, then multi-site trialling, then commercial evaluation. The breeder put it simply: “It takes a long time to develop an apple because you want to test it in different locations, you want to observe it over a number of years.”

More than twenty years of field observation went into the cold-hardiness assessment alone. That is what the claim cost.

A long-running apple breeding partnership between Purdue, Rutgers and the University of Illinois — PRI for short. WineCrisp is one of its releases, and its breeding number, Co-op 31, comes from that programme.

It traces back to crosses made at Illinois in 1914 and 1915, which makes WineCrisp the product of a century of patient work.

Nineteen by the time WineCrisp arrived, and roughly fifty more varieties around the world descend from the programme’s material.

We grow four of them: WineCrisp (Co-op 31), GoldRush (Co-op 38), CrimsonCrisp (Co-op 39) and Enterprise (Co-op 30).

L. Fredric Hough of Rutgers, the man who in 1943 noticed that C. S.

His collaboration with Ralph Shay of Purdue from 1945 became the PRI programme. He is credited in the release paper with making the cross that produced WineCrisp.

A plant breeder at the University of Illinois who, in 1914 and 1915, crossed Rome Beauty with the Japanese flowering crabapple Malus floribunda 821 and raised around 450 seedlings.

Nearly thirty years passed before anyone understood what those trees carried.

Not at supermarket scale.

A 2009 introduction with modest sugar, a matte near-black skin and unusual hardness was never going to be a chain-store apple, whatever its merits.

The release paper gives a measured figure from Illinois trials on Malling 7 rootstock: 15 kg per tree annually, cropping reliably rather than biennially, and needing light fruit thinning.

The patent adds that the crop is well distributed through the canopy rather than bunched, which is what a picker wants.

It appears so. The breeders based that on more than twenty years of field observation in Illinois and Indiana, which is a reasonable body of evidence.

They were careful not to claim more than they had measured — the wording is that it “appears” cold-hardy for those winters. Zone 5 is a safe assumption; colder than that is untested ground.

Nothing in particular. It was bred to answer a question — could a very hard, very long-keeping apple also be a delicious one?

WineCrisp is the answer. It is one of the firmest apples in commerce and one of the most interesting to eat, which is not a combination you often get.

Mid to late October in the north. The plant patent gives 8 to 20 October at Urbana, Illinois; a nursery in upstate New York puts it at late October, about 40 days after McIntosh; an orchard in central Virginia picks it in mid to late September.

That is a six-week spread across three sites and all three are right about their own orchard. See Harvest Times for where our crop actually stands.

Months, and this is one of the best keepers we grow. The patent records up to seven months at 34 °F and about 30 days at room temperature.

In a home refrigerator, three to five months at genuinely good quality is a realistic expectation. The flesh is so dense that texture holds long after a normal apple has given up.

Because they are describing different conditions. Seven months is the patented figure at 34 °F. The 2009 university announcement said eight to nine months, which will be controlled atmosphere. A commercial nursery says at least six months in ordinary cold storage.

Our working figure for a domestic refrigerator is three to five months. We would rather give you the one that matches your kitchen than the most impressive one.

Let it sit. The flavour peaks about a month after harvest. Straight off the tree it is hard and somewhat closed-up; after three or four weeks in the fridge it opens out.

This is a mild version of what GoldRush does over a whole winter, and it is the opposite of McIntosh, which is at its best the day it is picked.

Crisper drawer, in a loosely closed bag with a few holes. Cold and humid. The patent’s own storage figure is at 34 °F, which is colder than most refrigerators run, so treat the long numbers as an upper bound.

Do not wash before storing — it strips the natural bloom and leaves water in the stem cavity. Keep them away from onions and anything strongly scented.

Yes, and longer than most apples — the patent allows about 30 days at room temperature, which is remarkable. A near-black matte apple in a bowl is also a handsome thing.

You will still get more months out of it in the refrigerator. Keep a few out and the rest cold.

Very slowly. It starts so firm that it has a long way to fall before anyone would call it soft, which is why it is still good in late winter.

What changes first is not the texture but the balance. Over the months it gradually reads sweeter and a little less complex, so the winey character is at its best in the first half of the storage season.

Yes. Core and slice, tray-freeze until hard, then bag with the air pressed out. About a year in the freezer, and they come out well for pie, crisp and sauce.

Dip the slices in lemon water or ascorbic acid first — WineCrisp browns at a normal rate. Freezing destroys crispness in every apple, so use them cooked.

Very. A long-keeping, dense, thick-skinned apple is exactly what a cellar is for, and 34 to 38 °F with high humidity will get you most of the patent’s seven months.

Store in shallow layers rather than deep bins, check weekly, and pull anything bruised before it gases the rest along.

Hardly at all, by apple standards.

That toughness is why it ships and stores so well, and it is a large part of why cider makers and farm-stand growers like it.

No — it hangs well. The patent notes the fruit holds on the tree for two or more weeks after ripening, and the breeders say the same.

That is a genuinely useful trait for a small grower, because it widens the picking window instead of forcing everything into one weekend.

It moves with the season, so we do not publish a fixed date. Harvest Times tracks where each variety stands as the crop comes in.

Apple Crop Growing 2026 lists what is still on the tree, and Ready to Ship shows what is leaving the farm today.

In the crisper drawer of the refrigerator. Cold and slightly humid is what apples want, and WineCrisp will happily sit there for months.

Keep it away from onions and anything strongly scented — apples pick up smells.

For a few weeks, yes, and it holds up far better than most apples would. But you are spending its best quality to have a fruit bowl.

Refrigerate what you are not going to eat soon.

Fresh eating first — it was bred as a dessert apple. After that, anything that benefits from an apple that will not collapse: pie, tarts, baked slices, and hard cider.

It is a poor choice for applesauce, because it does not want to break down.

Very. It is one of the firmest apples in commerce, so the slices hold their shape completely, and it brings enough tartness to keep a sweet filling interesting.

Cut it a little thinner than you would a softer apple — this flesh takes longer to give. Some bakers blend it with a softer variety so the filling is not uniformly firm.

Completely. Expect distinct, recognisable slices in a finished pie, with no slumping at all.

If you want a filling that softens into a mass, this is the wrong apple. Use McIntosh or Cortland, or blend.

Honestly, no — not on its own. The flesh resists breaking down, so you end up cooking it far longer than you should and still getting a chunky, stubborn sauce.

Use Liberty, McIntosh or Cortland for sauce. If you have WineCrisp to use up, put a third of it into a sauce made mostly from a softer apple.

Yes, and it is a good component. Albemarle CiderWorks — a cidery, not a marketing department — describes it as deeply red with a sweet, complex flavour bolstered by mild acidity.

Blend it with Golden Russet for sugar and body, or GoldRush for more acid still.

Good, and unusual. It presses a dark, deeply coloured juice with more acid than most single-variety sweet cider, so it tastes of something rather than just of sugar.

Because the yield per apple is lower than from a watery variety, expect to press more fruit for the same volume. The juice is worth it.

Excellent. It is hard enough to hold its edges against dressing, and the acid works with vinaigrette rather than against it.

Cut it close to serving, or dress it straight away — it browns at a normal rate. For prep-ahead salads use AutumnCrisp.

Usually not. The skin is thick but it carries a lot of the spice, and it softens in the oven.

Peel for a refined tart, a custard-set dessert, or if you find the parchment-like texture off-putting raw.

Five or six for a standard 9-inch double-crust pie. At the patent’s average weight of about 0.44 pounds, two to two and a half make a pound and a pie wants two and a half to three pounds.

Allow extra time for peeling and slicing.

More than a sweet apple and less than a Granny Smith.

Taste the filling before it goes in. Fruit that has sat a month in storage will be noticeably sweeter than fruit picked last week.

Very good. The dense, low-water flesh shrinks less than a juicy apple’s and the flavour concentrates rather than disappearing.

Slice an eighth of an inch, skin on for colour, and dry at 135 °F for six to ten hours. Dip the slices first, since it browns normally.

Canned pie filling, yes — this is one of the best apples for it, because the slices survive processing without turning to mush, which is the usual failure.

Apple butter, less so. That wants an apple that collapses. Blend WineCrisp in for flavour and acid rather than using it alone.

Ideal. It is the right size, the acid cuts the caramel, the skin takes a coating well, and it is hard enough to stay crisp under the sugar for days.

Chill and dry the apples thoroughly first or the caramel will slide.

Yes, and it is one of the better apples for it precisely because it does not fall apart. Thick rings in a hot dry pan or on a clean grate, four or five minutes a side.

It takes longer than a soft apple and rewards the patience. Good with pork, sausage and sharp cheese.

Yes, for cooking. Peel, core, slice, toss with a squeeze of lemon, freeze flat on a tray and then bag them.

Thawed apple is soft, so it is for pies and sauces rather than for eating raw. Frozen slices keep most of a year.

Very well. It dices cleanly, holds its edges, and the sharpness cuts through a rich dressing or a strong cheese.

Because the skin is so dark, the cubes look striking against greens.

A medium WineCrisp — about 195 grams — is roughly 95 to 105 calories. A small one is nearer 75 to 85; a large one runs 120 to 130.

The figure to work from is 52 calories per 100 grams, from USDA, for a raw apple with the skin on. WineCrisp is a firm, medium-sized apple that eats winey and complex rather than simply sweet.

A large WineCrisp of about 240 grams comes to roughly 120 to 130 calories.

Across the sizes we pack: small (~155 g) about 81, medium (~195 g) about 101, large (~240 g) about 125. Multiply the weight in grams by 0.52 for a close estimate at any size.

A small WineCrisp of about 155 grams is roughly 75 to 85 calories.

A kitchen scale beats guessing from the word on the bag — and the apple count on a case is the quickest guide, since a 72-count fruit is considerably larger than a 125-count.

Per 100 grams of raw WineCrisp with the skin on: about 52 calories, 13.81 g carbohydrate, 2.4 g fiber, 0.26 g protein, 0.17 g fat, 107 mg potassium and 85.56 g water.

For a medium apple of about 195 grams that is roughly 101 calories, 27 g carbohydrate and 4.7 g fiber. The full table by size is in the nutrition section above.

About 25 to 29 grams of total carbohydrate in a medium apple, of which roughly 4.7 grams is fiber — so approximately 22 grams of net carbs.

Per 100 grams that is 13.81 grams. That is typical for an apple.

Roughly 27 grams of total carbohydrate in a medium apple, with about 4.7 grams of that being dietary fiber.

Essentially all of an apple’s calories are carbohydrate — there is almost no fat and, in this cultivar, about 0.26 grams of protein per 100 grams.

About 18 to 22 grams in a medium apple, all of it the fruit’s own — nothing is added. That is 10.4 grams per 100 grams of fruit.

WineCrisp is not a sugar bomb, and that is the point. It tastes winey and spicy and genuinely complex, with real tartness behind it — the best argument we know against judging an apple by how sweet it is.

About 4.7 grams in a medium apple with the skin on — 2.4 grams per 100 grams.

That is about average for an apple. Peeling costs you roughly a third of it.

Very little of either: about 0.5 grams of protein and 0.3 grams of fat in a medium apple, and virtually no sodium.

Apples are almost entirely water and carbohydrate — WineCrisp is about 85.56 percent water by weight.

About 107 mg per 100 grams, so roughly 209 mg in a medium apple.

That is typical for an apple.

About 9.0 mg in a medium apple — 4.6 mg per 100 grams.

Apples are not a major vitamin C source next to citrus; an orange carries roughly ten times as much. What there is sits mostly just under the skin and degrades with heat, so a raw unpeeled apple retains more of it than a baked one.

For fiber, yes — roughly a third of it sits in the skin, along with most of the fruit’s colour compounds.

WineCrisp skin is thick, matte and almost parchment-like to the touch — nothing like a waxed supermarket apple. It is edible and it carries much of the spice in the flavour, but peel it for a refined tart if the texture bothers you. Rinse under running water and rub with your hands before eating, as with any fresh fruit.

Roughly two large, three medium or four small apples make a pound — three medium is the standard working assumption in American recipes.

44 lb, so roughly two to two and a half to the pound. A 9-inch pie takes five or six — and this is a firm apple, so you will want a sharp knife.

Nearly opposite apples that share three letters.

Honeycrisp wins on texture for most palates; WineCrisp wins on flavour complexity, keeping and the whole orchard.

Programme siblings — Co-op 31 and Co-op 38 — and the closest comparison we can offer. Both improve after picking.

GoldRush is yellow, later still, far more aggressively tart at harvest, and keeps longer. WineCrisp is dark red, ready sooner, better balanced on the day you pick it, and better looking on a farm stand.

Co-op 31 against Co-op 39, both from the same programme. CrimsonCrisp is brighter red and glossy, earlier, spicier and sharper. WineCrisp is darker, matte, later, more winey and a much better keeper.

Grow or buy both and you have good fruit from early October right through the winter.

Co-op 31 against Co-op 30. Enterprise is the closer comparison of all the PRI apples — also late, also very firm, also a long keeper, also improving in storage.

Enterprise tends to be larger and more distinctly spicy. WineCrisp is darker, harder still, and rather more balanced. A cider maker would take either.

Liberty is the softer, brighter, more delicate apple — juicy and refreshing in the McIntosh style, ripening in early October and keeping a couple of months.

WineCrisp ripens later, is far harder, and keeps most of the winter. Liberty is the one to eat in autumn; WineCrisp is the one still worth eating in February.

They look alike and that is the whole connection. Winesap is a nineteenth-century American heirloom, a triploid, spicy and winey in its own right.

WineCrisp is a modern patented cultivar named for the resemblance. If you like Winesap’s flavour direction you will probably like WineCrisp, which is a happy accident rather than a design.

Both are very firm, very late and very good keepers, and there the similarity stops. Fuji is frankly sweet with low acid and a fine, dense, juicy flesh.

WineCrisp is less sweet and considerably more acid, with a spicier and more complex flavour and a much more interesting skin. Fuji for a sweet tooth; WineCrisp for someone who finds Fuji boring.

The comparison people reach for on looks — both are very dark, very hard, very late, and both need time in storage before they are at their best.

Arkansas Black keeps even longer and is the darker of the two.

Two good apples that eat quite differently. Cameo is striped red on cream, brighter and more aromatic, and browns normally.

WineCrisp is darker, harder and spicier, with that winey complexity Cameo does not have. Neither is especially sugary, and both are proof that sweetness is not the same thing as flavour.

Enterprise, its programme sibling, is the nearest thing — same era, same breeding, same late dense character. After that, Winesap for flavour direction and Arkansas Black for looks and texture.

Nothing is a true substitute. Very few apples combine this much acid with this much firmness.

If you want complexity and keeping, yes.

If you want sweetness and a soft bite, it is the wrong apple and you will not enjoy it.

Because it does not look like what a produce buyer buys. A matte, near-black apple with a parchment-like skin photographs badly against a wall of glossy red and yellow, and it was introduced in 2009 with no marketing budget behind it.

The flavour and the storage life are both excellent. The same pattern kept Golden Russet out on looks for seventy years.

Both firm and both tart, but they are not the same thing. Granny Smith is sharp and simple — a clean, bracing sourness. WineCrisp is sharp and complex, with a winey, spicy depth behind it.

Granny Smith is the better apple when you want pure tartness. WineCrisp is the better one to just sit and eat.

Both late, firm and long-keeping. Pink Lady is brighter and more citric; WineCrisp is darker, harder and more savoury-spicy.

If you like Pink Lady and want something with more depth, this is the one to try.

Honestly, nothing very close. The combination of that hardness, the near-black skin and the winey flavour is unusual.

GoldRush is the nearest in spirit — another very hard, very late, very long-keeping apple with real character.

Yes, from a licensed nursery. It is patented as USPP 20,437, so a nursery must be licensed to propagate it and a royalty is built into the tree price.

We sell fruit rather than trees.

The patent describes the tree as moderately vigorous and semi-spreading, giving a size of about 10 feet tall and 5½ feet wide for the trees it describes.

Rootstock will move that a long way. Nurseries offer it on dwarfing stocks such as G.41 and P.18 as well as semi-dwarf M.7 and semi-standard B.118; expect 8 to 12 feet on dwarfing and 15 to 20 on the larger stocks.

It is described as precocious, so two to four years from planting on a dwarfing rootstock and three to five on semi-dwarf is a reasonable expectation.

It also crops annually rather than biennially, which is the trait a home grower notices most after the first few years.

The release paper gives a measured figure from Illinois trials on Malling 7 rootstock: 15 kilograms per tree per year, cropping annually and needing only light thinning.

That is about 33 pounds, or roughly 75 apples, from a semi-dwarf tree — a real number from a real trial rather than a catalogue promise.

Light thinning only, according to the release paper — less than many varieties need. The patent notes the crop is well distributed through the canopy rather than clustered.

Compare that with Liberty, which over-sets badly and needs aggressive thinning to size its fruit at all.

It is not self-fertile, so it needs another variety flowering at the same time. Liberty, Enterprise, GoldRush, Honeycrisp, Gala or a flowering crabapple will all serve.

One caution below on whether WineCrisp can pollinate other trees — the sources disagree, so plan around it.

Sources conflict, and we have not been able to settle it. At least one orchard and one pollination chart list WineCrisp as a triploid and therefore pollen-sterile; a major fruit-tree nursery lists it as a diploid that simply is not self-fertile.

The practical advice is the same either way and it is the safe version: do not rely on WineCrisp to pollinate anything else. Plant at least two other compatible varieties so the block works whichever is true.

Zone 5 is well supported — the breeders base their cold-hardiness assessment on more than twenty years of field observation in Illinois and Indiana, and they say it “appears” hardy for those winters.

They did not claim more than they had measured, and neither will we. Colder than zone 5 is untested rather than known to fail.

Easier than most. The patent and the release paper agree on strong trees that branch well, annual cropping, good fruit distribution and only light thinning — and the largest disease in eastern apple growing simply does not affect it.

The two things to plan for are a rust programme if cedars are nearby and a pollination partner, since you cannot count on it to pollinate others.

From licensed fruit-tree nurseries — Adams County, Cummins and others carry it on a range of rootstocks. Ask for it as WineCrisp™ or Co-op 31; both appear on tags, along with PP#20,437.

Expect the price to include a royalty. We sell fruit, not trees.

Here, shipped from the farm when the crop is in, and otherwise from direct-market orchards, farm stands and cider houses. It is not a supermarket variety.

See Ready to Ship for what is leaving the farm today.

Packed in trays or cells so the fruit cannot shift.

Details on packing, transit and destinations are on our shipping information page. Refrigerate the box on arrival anyway.

Yes. Case and bulk quantities are on our bulk and case apples page, and WineCrisp is an unusually sensible variety to buy that way because it keeps for months.

A bushel runs about 40 to 42 pounds, which at roughly two and a quarter apples to the pound is around 90 to 95 WineCrisps. Cider makers and canners buy it by the bushel for exactly these reasons.

Small plantings, a royalty on every tree, hand picking, and a variety no supermarket chain buys at volume. A supermarket apple is priced on millions of bushels and a national distribution network; this one is not.

What you get for it is an apple that stays hard and interesting for months, and one most people have never tasted.

For fresh eating over a long winter and for cider, yes — it stores for months, so the cost per week of good eating is low. For sauce, no; buy a cheaper apple that actually breaks down.

Buy a few before you buy a case. It is a distinctive apple and not everyone wants one this firm.

Ask us. We grow it, pick it and ship it, so we would rather answer a question than have you work it out from a nursery catalogue. Contact details and our general handling advice are on the Honeycrisp.com apple FAQ.

To compare it against everything else we grow, the full apple varieties guide puts them side by side.

It depends on the size of the fruit that year, but a full case is generally in the 80 to 100 apple range, and a half bushel around 40 to 50.

Tell us how much you want and we will tell you what that looks like in fruit.

It is one of the best, precisely because it keeps so long. A case bought in November is still good eating well into the new year, which is not true of most varieties.

Give it a cool dark place and check it occasionally.

Because there is not enough of it. Supermarket chains buy on volume and national distribution, and WineCrisp is grown in small plantings by growers who sell direct.

That is the reason to buy it from a farm rather than a shelf — there is no shelf.