I have seen some listing that Rubinette might be the best. What is your opinion? I’m not on board yet. Picked my three today and ate the one that was a little soft. Seemed slightly over ripe. Extremely sweet without any tartness. The other two might be more representative of what Rubinette taste like.
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I liked Rubinette a lot- same with Karmijn de Sonnaville. But neither of them seemed to have a particularly long “window of opportunity”. I’ve only had a few very small crops. So I have to reserve judgement. I hope next year is better than this year was. My apples are few and far between, and I missed timing on my spinosad sprays so they all got pretty well beat up by codling moth. I know @scottfsmith said he almost removed his Rubinette, but found that later crops improved considerably, and now I think he ranks it very high.
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Bill, your Rubinettes sound just like how mine tasted the first couple of years. I nearly pulled it out, but boy am I glad I didn’t! The tree has become a very reliable producer of excellent sweet-tart apples. I have no idea how it could change so much in a few years.
This year most of my Rubinettes are clean (well, clean as in no bugs or rots, but they are completely covered in sooty blotch as are all my late apples, all this rain was horrible for that); the main problem is they are high brix and all the wasps love 'em.
Mark, I find the Rubinettes ripen over a couple of weeks, and then they store for a month or two. They are not a long storage apple, they get soft.
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I only had a few to store, and had hoped they’d turn out to be good keepers, but no such luck. (Turns out my Liberties, which I once slandered as “not good keepers” are among my best keepers if picked on the early side, that is, before they fully color up and start to fall on their own, or come off in your hand when you test them.)
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I think that’s true in general of apple storage - you have to pick early
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For me, my all time favorite is The Melrose, it has everything a apple should taste.
I have been out of the apple growing since i retired to my new place in Arkansas.
Grew antique kinds, then Japanese and what not, just give me a Melrose.I grew all of mine on M 27, best tasting combo, small but good. Might start this one again.
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Ate the last two small Rubinettes yesterday. These two were slightly over ripe but not as much as the first one. All three were as sweet tasting as any I have had without any tartness. I prefer at least a little tartness in my apples and these might be if picked a little earlier. Based only on taste they were even sweeter than Gala. I could see my grands loving the Rubinette. Got to wait until next year to try out earlier picking.
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Bill, I don’t think those are much like the tree will eventually be producing. It should have ripened several weeks earlier. Here are some old log entries showing how it evolved for me.
2008: boring!
Rubinette - had only a couple. They were sweet but bland. Need more samples and need to age them better. Web seems to think they are great.
2009: aromatic
Rubinette - very aromatic Cox-like nice apple. Maybe a touch better than Gala and not as good as Kidds based on my memory.
2011: finally getting sours
Rubinette - got an early one which tasted more like a yellow school apple, plenty tart too. Worth saving this tree.
2012: more sweets and sours, less aromatics
Rubinette - tree is finally in a good production mode. Has been very good, both good sweets and sours as well as nice aromatics. Its a pretty hard apple with few blemish problems. Consistent sizing as well. Its more in the yellow apple school than I remember from past years - very sweet/sour and not so much aromatics (but, more than yellow apple school). Later aged ones have good aromatics and not as sour.
The apple is not always consistent, its more or less aromatic some years and more or less sour. Here is 2016.
Rubinette - Significant rotting problems this year. Another reason to do summer sprays next year. Had a ton of apples originally so I still got many of them. Taste this year was much less like Cox and much closer to Golden Delicious. Not nearly as sour. The later heat really changed the flavor on this apple. Fortunately they were still excellent if not up to their usual.
This year (2018) we also had a lot of late heat but they were still a sour apple, so I don’t think its just the late heat. I guess one thing thats clear from all these entries is it varies from year to year, perhaps a bit more than your average apple.
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Thanks. I’m looking forward to next year. I will pick earlier.
My year 1 Rubinette has been amazing. Superb tart/sweet combination and very aromatic. Not to mention very productive.
Rubinette is certainly among the best-tasting apples in my orchard, too. In the top ten for sure, and maybe the top five. Certainly in the same class as AK, but much more productive so far. Haven’t been able to compare it to KdS as yet; the latter still hasn’t fruited here.
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You guys are both on the west coast, it seems like its more consistent out there.
I just harvested the last of my Rubinettes yesterday. Wow, they are really something special. They look horrible with sooty blotch on almost every inch of surface, they look like black apples from the top. But the taste is all there, and sugars are at the top of my apple pile this year. They are 20-23 brix in a good year, this year they are 17-20 which is still well above an average apple.
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