Calville Blanc d’Hiver

A medium-sized, fragrant apple with a lumpy appearance. The skin is a smooth, pale green or pale yellow with some red blush.

This is a classic French dessert apple; it’s the apple that is traditionally used for French “tarte aux pommes.”

Cooking Tips

Keeps its shape very well when cooked. Also good for cider and cider vinegar.

Many people say that this is the best “indigenous” French apple to cook with.

Nutrition

Many sources say that Calville Blanc d’Hiver Apples have as much or more Vitamin C than an orange. This is false.

Oranges have 50 to 55g per 100g, depending on what source you check with. Calville Blanc d’Hiver Apples have a mean ascorbic acid (Vitamin C) of 17.8 mg/100 g ^[1]V. Planchon , M. Lateur , P. Dupont and G. Lognay.. Ascorbic acid level of Belgian apple genetic resources. Scientia Horticulturae, Volume 100, Issues 1-4, 19 March 2004, Pages 51-61. . Most apples average around 6 mg / per 100g. Note that Golden Noble apples, though, are much higher than Calville Blanc, having 25.10 mg / per 100g.

Storage Hints

Tastes even better after a month in storage.

History Notes

Originated in Europe in the late 1500s, known in France by the early 1600s.

Literature & Lore

Monet painted this apple in his still life, “Apples and Grapes”.

“Calville apples, each with its own coat of arms, costing five roubles apiece at the point of sale. And guests from outside Moscow hid duchess and Calville apples in the back pockets of their long-tailed frock coats to carry them away to the Taganka, into their old-fashioned houses, that smelt of lamp oil and sauerkraut.” ^[2]Gilyarkovsky, Vladimir. Memoirs of Old Moscow. Translated by Brian Murphy and Michael Pursglove. 2016. Accessed January 2022 at http://gilyarovsky.com/. Page 95.