Rose Sweet Onions Pt 1

Rose Sweet Onions Pt 1

Bob Larson
Bob Larson
I'm Bob Larson. If you were to wander around the Walla Walla Sweet Onion fields in the past year or two, there's an offshoot of the "Sweets" that's getting some attention.

Playing off terms heard in the Walla Walla wine industry, grower Mike Locati is, for the first time, marketing his Rosé Sweet onion ...

LOCATI ... "Yeah, be on the watch for our Rosé Sweet. We had a good run this year, a good trial run. I think people were pretty responsive to them. They definitely held their sweetness. They're a nice rosé color and hopefully people react well as we get bigger. You know, it's going to take us some time, but hopefully they'll react well as we get more and more production with that."

Locati says it's something he's been developing for about 10-years after finding a few mixed in with the Yellow Sweets ...

LOCATI ... "We'd be in the yellow fields and I'd see one here, one there and we'd always throw them out as culls. So, I started sort of breeding those because it's all hand selection. All of our stuff is open pollinated. And, finally, you know, this year I've gotten to the point we were able to put in, not much, probably it's probably only, it might be close to 10-percent because we've got close to seven acres of our Walla Walla's. We raised Rosé Sweets, a play off the wine game."

Locati says the only thing that's changed is the color ...

LOCATI ... "So, these are really good to eat raw. They're great in salads. They have a nice color to them. You know, what I don't want to do is sacrifice my Sweet Onion flavor for a color."

Tune in tomorrow for more on the latest addition to the Sweet Onion family.

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