Carter Mountain Orchard

It's the tail end of apple season in Virginia, but since we were out in Charlottesville to leaf gaze, we decided to make our way to Carter Moutain Orchard to see if they still had Pick-Your-Own apples available.

The only apple varieties that have not been picked out were Fuji, Winesap, and Pink Lady. Since we had picked a whole bunch of Fujis a few weeks ago, we opted for the Winesaps and Pink Ladies, especially since the orchard folks told us they would be our best bets. My husband likes the Winesaps, since they are a little tangy and very crisp. We didn't have high hopes for Pink Ladies, since the ones we purchased from grocery stores were always mealy and not very flavorful. One good thing about picking your own apples: FREE SAMPLES! We could try the apples as we picked to figure out if we liked that variety. It turns out that good Pink Ladies are firm, crisp, sweet (but not overly so) and apple-y. We picked about 7 lbs at $0.79/lb. Here's a row of Pink Lady trees.

Another draw of Carter Mountain Orchard is their apple cider doughnuts ($4.25 for 6). It is a cake doughnut made with apple cider, and a light dusting of cinnamon sugar. Yum! We requested ones that just came out of the fryer. Double yum!