When Is A Peach, Not A Peach?

When Is A Peach, Not A Peach?

When is a Peach, Not a Peach? I’m Greg Martin with today’s Fruit Grower Report.

I had an interesting conversation yesterday with James Michael who is the promotions director for the Washington State Fruit Commission about this years crop of stone fruit and James mentioned that he has been meeting with different media groups to talk about the different fruits; peaches, nectarines, apricots and cherries.

MICHAEL: That’s probably the most exciting story from the whole season is just that we had a good opportunity to get great flavor in front of new consumers. I did a media dinner at a conference in Oregon here at the end of August and took down some stone fruit and some cherries and it was a course with the wines all from one winemaker.

He says it was a good time to get an important message across to the various media.

MICHAEL: But a peach is a peach and they’ll do a recipe, they’ll write up a recipe with your peaches but they won’t put an origin on it. And so here you are sitting having a dinner and everyone gets to know the winemaker and he’s explaining the grape on this hillside and how it’s different from the grape on this hillside and the soil composition and why that makes a difference in the flavor and therefore the flavor of the wine.

This is where there is a lightbulb moment.

MICHAEL: We’re doing a fruit course dinner and you say well the same difference you are getting from 300 feet and you are talking a peach is a peach is a peach, no, there’s a marked difference and so these Washington peaches that have that acid, that have that flavor to them that aren’t just sweetness. There’s juice and that’s what we really think sets them apart and all of sudden you see these lights clicking on across the table and they say “oh, I get it.”

That’s today’s Fruit Grower Report. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network. 

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