Sebastopol's Vintage Treasures

As summer slides into fall, Sonoma County embraces apple harvest season in all its glory, from the aroma of the ripe pome fruit to the rattle of laden trucks to the myriad varieties beckoning at market stands. Erin Gleeson—a photographer, artist, cookbook author and founder of lifestyle brand The Forest Feast—knows the joy of this annual rite firsthand. She was 4 when her family moved to an apple orchard in Sebastopol in the early 1980s. “It was dreamy and beautiful,” she recalls.

In addition to years of attending the Gravenstein Apple Fair and Apple Blossom Parade & Festival, her childhood included copious apple consumption. There were apple pies, muffins, cookies and crisps. Applesauce and apple butter. Dried apples were eaten and used for decorative garlands.

“We made everything imaginable with apples,” says Gleeson, whose fifth cookbook, The Watercolor Feast, comes out next spring. “I never got tired of them.”

That sentiment likely rings true for many in Sonoma. After all, apples have been a staple crop in the county for more than two centuries, with the first Gravenstein trees planted circa 1811 in Fort Ross. By the mid-1900s, with the region’s mild coastal climate ideal for growing apples, the industry was booming. Production has since declined, however, with land increasingly earmarked for wine grapes.

In 1943 the county was growing 14,200 acres of apples, according to the Sonoma County Department of Agriculture. By 2022 that had dropped to 2,100 total acres. During the same period, grape acreage rose from 23,500 to 57,000. In February, Manzana—the county’s only remaining apple processing plant—made headlines when the 102-year-old company announced plans to move its operations to Washington State.

Still, the desire to preserve and perpetuate this cherished aspect of Sonoma’s agricultural heritage holds strong. And for some growers, cultivating heirloom apples decades ago has proved a prescient decision, contributing to their continued success.

Brooke Hazen founded Gold Ridge Organic Farms in Sebastopol in 2000, on an 88-acre “blank canvas.“ There were no trees on the pastureland that his family purchased. In building the farm from scratch, he homed in on two crops—olives and apples—and emphasized diversification, planting different varieties of both. The olives outnumber the apples in acres occupied, approximately 70 to 17, but he has 13,000 trees of each. Ten percent of his apples are considered heirloom, with over 70 varieties.

Hazen defines heirloom apples, also called antique apples, as follows: The fruit must not be commercially grown on a large scale and “it has to be flat-out old,“ he says, though allows that this is a gray area. (His oldest is the Ananas Reinette, which dates to 1500s France.) Hazen’s third criterion is that the fruit has a history—in his words, “a path that it went on to get to where it is.”

As a student at Prescott College in Arizona, he learned about specialty crop production, including the importance of “differentiating yourself from the pack,” says Hazen, for whom innovation and creativity are always top of mind. “If you’re just standard and doing what everyone else is doing, with the economics of farming today, I’m not sure how you survive. Because it’s already super hard.”

Hazen devised a novel way to purvey his heirloom table apples, aka dessert apples, or those eaten “fresh out of hand.” He sells roughly 2-pound bags through Whole Foods locations and Petaluma’s FEED Cooperative. Comprising six to nine varieties, Hazen says, “it’s almost like a gift pack that morphs every week because the varieties are constantly transitioning.” The ripe fruit generally journeys from tree to store to consumer within a day or two.

Hazen’s offerings encompass apples that are available early in the season. “I have Strawberry Parfait that ripens in late July,” he says. “By then, people have been eating stored apples or imports for months. So the early varieties are incredibly welcome.” August and September are his “real harvest months,” he adds.

On September 14, Gold Ridge is hosting its third annual Heirloom Apple Celebration. “We have a full display of apples that are ripe at the time,“ Hazen says, estimating that about 35 varieties will be at their peak in September. “People can see and taste them—all these beautiful colors, flavors and textures. They can compare and discover the nuances of different varieties.”

Attendees can partake of culinary treats such as wood-fired pizzas topped with apples and ice cream drizzled with apple cider syrup. For products like the syrup, dried apples and vinegars, Hazen employs #2, or imperfect, apples. In the wake of Manzana’s relocation, he anticipates developing more such uses for these apples.