Some Interesting Apples Taste Trial 2025
Saturday 18 October 2025 11am – 3pm
£25 – Including simple lunch and cider tasting.
Click here to book now
Continuing the success of the previous iterations, Kestle Barton is pleased to host the 2025 Some Interesting Apples pomological exhibition and taste trials – led by William Arnold, James Fergusson and Caitlin DeSilvey.
The trial will be open to a small number of participants, who will have the opportunity to personally engage with wilding apple submissions and offer discerning thoughts and feedback.
As a participant, you will be guided through a taste trial of selected seedling fruit and have the chance to rate your findings. You will also be invited to take part in discussing the process with the project leaders and the other participants, and to collectively ponder the possible relevance of these fruits in a climate-changed future. Your participation will contribute to the ongoing development of the project and your findings will be lodged in the trial archive.
The session will involve tasting many apples in this manner, before enjoying lunch together – accompanied by Kestle Barton apple juice and selected ciders from Vagrant Cider. The session will end with an optional tour of the Wilding Mother Orchard at Penarvon, where selected apples identified through previous taste trials are being propagated in a dedicated orchard.
There are limited spaces available for this unique apple experience.
About the project:
Some Interesting Apples (SIA) is a project co-founded by William Arnold and James Fergusson, the primary aim of which is to record and, where characteristics make desirable, preserve wilding apples (i.e., Malus domestica growing on their own roots as the result of a discarded core). Having grown and often thrived in seemingly unfavourable circumstances, these trees present opportunities to propagate hardy novel cultivars, something of ever-increasing relevance in an erratic climate. As warmer winters and drier summers threaten the viability of traditional UK heritage varieties, the ability of M. domestica to adapt makes apple wildings a potentially valuable resource for future food production. SIA works in partnership with the University of Exeter, the National Trust, Forest for Cornwall and Kestle Barton.
Public donations of fruit – strictly those grown from accidental seedlings NOT orchard apples – geotagged via ///what.three.words are highly encouraged. For details of how to submit please contact Kestle Barton.
