Apples: Renette and Golden Delicious

The smell and taste of the Alpine microclimate of the Aosta Valley within a juicy fruit.

Apples are the most cultivated fruit in the Aosta Valley. It is also the fruit which preserves its original freshness in every season, because it ages very slowly and has the capacity to maintain its healthful properties intact almost to the end.

In the Aosta Valley, due to the altitude and to the dry windy summer, the apple reaches an excellent level of maturity, without running a great risk of disease. The low rate of rainfall also contributes to a good final result. It is therefore a healthful fruit which does not undergo all the pesticide treatments needed in other areas.

There are four typical species, two of which are recognized as traditional agri-food products (PAT): the Renetta from the Aosta Valley, and the Golden Delicious from the Aosta Valley.

Rather large orchards are found in the areas of Saint-Pierre, Sarre and Villeneuve, where varieties such as the Pippin Apple (Renetta apple) are cultivated, a symbol of the fruit-growing tradition of Val d|"Aosta, with very delicate fragrant flesh and rough rusty-yellow skin. The Pippin apple is particularly suitable to be used in making pies, fritters and other culinary specialties.

The Golden delicious, with its juicy, sweet, crunchy flesh and yellow-pinkish skin, is a highly aromatic apple, indeed meriting the name of "pearl" of the table. The Golden delicious is highly affected by the microclimate and its best characteristics are brought out in a mountain environment.

Other varieties of apples grown in the region are the Red delicious, a bright red and very sugary apple, known and appreciated in the starking variety, and the Jonagold, with its characteristic sweet-sour flavor that derives from the crossing of two different qualities, the golden and the jonathan, which give rise to a mixed color: yellow background with red streaks. Its pulp is very crunchy and particularly juicy.