Central Virginia’s very own Albemarle Pippin has a wonderfully rich flavor, with a history to match.
by Lisa Reeder

Next to commercial giants like Red Delicious and Granny Smith, the Albemarle Pippin’s low shoulders, short stem, slightly flattened profile, and freckled countenance seem downright ordinary. But there is something undeniably charming about the performance of Our Local Hero. It fits neatly into the hand and is the perfect size for snacking, and
its pleasantly pebbled yellow-green exterior exudes an aroma that hints of the flavor inside.

In fact, it was extraordinary flavor and exceptional resistance to rot that charmed American colonists and powered the Pippin throughout the Colonies and around the world. Unlike most apples at that time, the Pippin sprouted from a random apple seed—or “pip,” hence the name Pippin—in the fields of Gershom Moore in Newtown, New York
(now Elmhurst, Queens). Moore dubbed his tree the Newtown Pippin. Rumors spread throughout the Colonies of an all-American apple tree bearing prolific quantities of a fruit suitable for eating, for storing, and for drinking in the form of cider.

The Pippin arrived in Williamsburg in 1755 and was planted throughout Virginia as quickly as scion could be grafted onto rootstock and planted in newly cleared fields. “They have no apples here to compare with our Newtown Pippin,” wrote Thomas Jefferson from Paris in a letter to James Madison in the 1780s. Little did he know at the time that the iron-rich soil on southeasterly slopes of his home county of Albemarle turned out a specimen so delicious that it would become known as the Albemarle Pippin.

In 1838, two bushels of the Albemarle Pippin were brought to England’s young Queen Victoria, who was so impressed that she immediately suspended the import tax on them. “When the Albemarle Pippin was in great demand during the 19th and early 20th centuries, it was referred to by my family as just Pippin, capital ‘P’ intended,” says Tom Burford, whose family has cultivated and sold apple trees in the Lynchburg area since the early 1700s. “It brought such high prices in the export market.” As true today as it was during Colonial times, the flavor is incomparable and even improves with age.

It’s tart and very crisp when harvested in October; as it continues ripening off the tree, its acidity lingers, balancing the mellow sweetness that slowly emerges. “Its sugars develop in storage, and many connoisseurs think it is at its peak in late January,” explains Charlotte Shelton of Vintage Virginia Apples and Albemarle CiderWorks in North Garden. “Of all the apples we grow, this is the one that I can eat continuously.” Shelton is such a big fan, in fact, that her Royal Pippin hard cider is 97 percent Pippin.

Burford too is smitten. He recalls numerous times in his youth when, in cleaning out the apple shed in mid-summer to make room for the new crop, he and his family would find and devour the remainder of the rot-specked, nine month-old Pippins. “My father would say, ‘This is when we should have started to eat the Pippins!’” he explains. “The long storage had developed a fruit that had reached its zenith of flavor.”

The difficulty in cultivating the tree, combined with its biennial bearing habit, made the Pippin a challenging commercial crop, and one that slowly waned as more reliable hybrids began appearing. By the end of World War I, Britain reinstated the tax on American apples, putting the final nail in the coffin of the commercially grown Pippin. At the same time, widespread refrigeration allowed other more perishable apples to be shipped long distances.

Today, demand and respect for the Pippin is growing again. It recently joined Slow Food USA’s Ark of Taste, a catalog of foods in danger of extinction.

Luckily, at orchards and farmers’ markets, the interest is there as well. “The Pippin is more popular now than it was 10 years ago,” says Cynthia Chiles, whose family owns and operates Charlottesville’s Carter Mountain Orchard and Crozet’s Chiles Peach Orchard, where Pippins are sold. “There seems to be a generation that has found the Albemarle Pippin recently through the local-foods movement, and they are seeking it out.”

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