I just bought Valentine at Costco in Fairbanks. I attended the NAFEX conference in Saskatoon a few years back and was able to taste all of the Romance series and Carmine Jewel. Bob Bors, the breeder, stated Juliet was his favorite for eating out of hand, and I agreed with his assessment. All but Valentine have fruited for me in Fairbanks, and Juliet is still the winner so far. It’s important to let these fully ripen though; brix increases the longer they hang, and some have been put off by eating underripe fruit. The USask website has color charts for each variety.
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USask is has released the Three Musketeers series of bush cherries in Europe. Look for Athos, Porthos, and D’Artagnon.
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Lutowka is very productive, but the fruit is small size and more acidic than most bush cherries. In Europe, it’s considered a “technical” cultivar — used mostly for processing. Other varieties with larger and sweeter fruit are used for fresh eating. BTW, English Morello cherry (sold by Dave Wilson) is the same thing as Lutowka (the polish transcription is Łutówka). Also the German cherry called Schattenmorelle. It’s a very old variety known under different names in different countries.
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For those who find tart cherries too sour for fresh eating, here’s a recipe that I invented about 35 year ago and that became very popular in my extended family. Cook some pasta. Pit your tart cherries (don’t cook them!). Mix pasta, cherries, and sugar (you will find the ratio of pasta/cherries/sugar that is right for you by experimenting, everybody’s taste buds are different). Mix well and let it stay for 10-15 minutes, so the pasta absorbs all that cherry juice. Enjoy!
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ive read the opposite. ive seen a review of it compared to the romance series cherries. it was the biggest of all of them and as far as brix goes it wasnt as sweet but also had less acidity than some of the others. it is also 2xs more productive by the 5th year. dont remember the website. just google ‘’ lutowaka rose polish sour cherry reviews’’. thats how i found it.
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agresearch.montana.edu/warc/research_current/berries/cherries.html
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Steve, I grow Lutowka along with bush cherries (Carmine Jewel, Juliet and Romeo), so I have first hand knowledge. Also, in my younger days I ate a lot of European tart cherry varieties and later read multiple descriptions of these varieties (including Lutowka) from European researchers and growers. Lutowka is somewhat on par with Carmine Jewel for me, while Juliet is a bit larger and sweeter. All of them are inferior size-wise and flavor-wise to “table” varieties like Balaton and Danube. There are tons of great “table” tart cherry varieties in Eastern Europe. Univ. of Michigan has brought here three Hungarian varieties, but it’s just the tip of the iceberg compared to what is grown overseas.
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just going on what the review said. it does say its on par flavor wise to carmine jewel but claimsits bigger than all of them. maybe different growing conditions?
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I’ll do a measurement later this summer. Visually, Lutowka is about the size of Carmine Jewel and smaller than Juliet. All of them would be (and Lutowka is) considered “technical” varieties in Europe, mostly usable for processing.
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I love Morello cherries for cooking. Are the U Sask cherries similar?
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They are not similar, they are morello cherries. Morello only means that the flesh is red, as opposed to the other type amarelle that has light colored flesh like Montmorency.
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I’ve only eaten one type of cherry called “Morello”, and it was going by this:
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Morello is a type (all tart cherries are of two types: Morello and Amarelle), and English Morello (aka Schattenmorelle aka Łutówka) is a particular variety of that type. Some people are too lazy to say two words and call “English Morello” by a single word “Morello”, but this is incorrect. To give you another example, there are many apple varieties of the Pippin type but to call one of these varieties simply by the name “Pippin” (instead of “Cox’s Orange Pippin”, for example) is incorrect and misleading.
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So is a French Montmorency tart cherry a Morello or Amarelle?
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Montmorency is Amarelle type.
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to be clear,
All non red fleshed tart (sour) cherry’s are Amerelle
All red fleshed tart (sour) cherry’s are Morello
That is the definition of Morello/Amarelle right?
Or does it have a basis in genetics/species? Or do all cherry’s of a certain type come from varieties with a certain trait/mutation? (common ancestor?)
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Hendrick, in “The Cherries of New York” (1915):
The cherries with colorless juice are the Amarelles, from the Latin for bitter, a term probably first used by the Germans but now in general use wherever these cherries are grown, though the English often designate them as Kentish cherries and the French as Cerisier Commun. These Amarelles are pale red fruits, more or less flattened at the ends. Despite the derivation of the name Amarelle, they have less bitterness than the other group of varieties of the Sour Cherry. They are also less acid than the darker colored cherries and are therefore more suitable for eating out of hand while the dark colored cherries are almost exclusively culinary fruits. The common representatives of this group are Early Richmond, Montmorency and the various cherries to which the word Amarelle is affixed, as the King Amarelle and the Spate Amarelle.
The second group, varieties with reddish juice and usually with very dark fruits which are more spherical or cordate in shape than the Amarelles, comprises the Morellos of several languages or the Griottes of the French. The first of these terms has reference to the color, the word Morello coming from the Itallian meaning blackish while Griotte, from the French, probably is derived through agriotte from aigre, meaning sharp, in reference to the acidity of these cherries. Weichsel is the German group name for these cherries, rather less commonly used than the other two terms. The trees of the Morello-like varieties are usually smaller, bushier and more compact than those of the Amarelles. The branches, as a rule, are more horizontal, often drooping, are less regularly arranged and are more slender. The leaves, in typical varieties, are smaller, thinner, a darker green and are pendant while those of the Amarelles are either inclined to be upright or horizontal; the leaves are also toothed less deeply and more regularly. These differences in the leaves are well shown in the color-plates of the varieties of the two groups. There are differences, also, in the inflorescence and the floral organs in the extreme types but these disappear in the varieties that connect the two forms. The typical varieties of this group are English Morello, Ostheim, Olivet, Brusseler Braune, Vladimir and Riga.
Hendrick’s description is obviously outdated since best cultivars for fresh eating are of Morello type, but he either did not have access to them or, mostly, they have been developed much later.
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Thanks, I never knew that!
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me niether. i thought a sour cherry was a sour cherry! that said i have both versions here. my romance series are going to have a good crop this summer if all the blooms develop. i dont see any on monty yet but its just starting to leaf. last year it had 2 blooms but both failed. be a few more years for lutowka.
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Just one short month ago I was talking about how sour my Romance cherries were last year - my first year to get a big crop. I was very disappointed and found them almost inedible they were so sour.
Well, I just picked this years crop and they are far, far sweeter than last year. They are still quite sour, but now I understand why many of you said you enjoy them out of hand fresh eating. Last year that seemed crazy- but today I ate about 10 of them in a row and found them pretty darn good. Just about the same as my Monty which are also ripening now.
Now, the obviously question is whether they are really a lot sweeter this year, did my tastes change, or what is going on. Unfortunately I don’t have a refractometer for measuring brix. But I am 100% certain that they are sweeter this year. We had a somewhat dryer spring -especially the last 10-12 days. I’m sure that helps. Its also possible that my tree has matured more and is just producing better fruit. I don’t know what is going on, but I’m happy about it.
I just wanted to make sure I came back and updated my opinion for those who didn’t agree or those who may not have tried them yet and were disappointed to hear me say I thought they were almost too sour to eat. Not any more! Juliet is the sweetest of mine, then Romeo. Romeo is also smaller on mine- though I’ve not seen a lot of others say that. They good news is a planted several suckers this winter so now I’m glad.
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