Apple Hill

Although I have mentioned Apple Hill often in past articles, I would be remiss if I didn’t devote a chapter to that very unique phenomenon of El Dorado County.  The area known as Apple Hill starts in Placerville, on the very next hill from where I grew up, and finishes in Pollock Pines eastward.  The main artery of Apple Hill is the winding Carson Road, along which are many of the key growers of apples, pumpkins, vineyards and Christmas trees.  Every fall the area is packed with tourists making annual trips to enjoy every kind of goodie that can be made from an apple and enjoy some of the most picturesque scenery in Northern California.

This conglomeration of ranchers operating under the PR friendly banner of “Apple Hill” is really a very recent thing, having come into being as the Apple Hill Growers Association in 1964.  It was four men, headed by Gene Bolster, a local grower, looking for a way out of a debilitating pear blight.  Yes, friends, it was all pears before 1965, but between 1958 and 1965 the pear output dropped from 52,000 tons to 8435 tons.  The few apple trees were surviving and so the growers rebuilt their farms by embracing the apple.  Bolster and Ed Delfino, the county agricultural commissioner, took a look at the success of ranches in Southern California’s Oak Glen and modeled Apple Hill on the same bylaws and marketing campaign.

Bob Tuck came up with the Camino pet name and very quickly over the summer of 1964 the association put together their program and held their first press picnic to introduce the world to Apple Hill by the end of August––always the opening of the season.  Since the original 16 ranches banded together, there are now some 90 members when you include the tree farms and wineries.  But, it would take more than banding together and a focus on the apple to entice people into the area.  Clarice Larson had the idea to show off all the different uses of the apple and created the first place to sample apple pie, candy apples and the like.  Of course, this is the key to the tourism and most barns have a bake shop as well as other enticing reasons for a car to pull off Carson road.  There are fruit and vegetable markets, craft fairs, train rides, fishing ponds and wine tasting among other lures.  Apple Hill quickly became a destination and it was in full swing as I was growing up in the 1970s.

A resident falls into a pattern of sticking with his favorite spots in Apple Hill, such as Santa’s Acres for Christmas trees (sadly, no longer in operation) or Able’s Acres for Halloween pumpkins.  One might have a favorite place to get an apple donut or apple pie.  My parents prefer to get their produce from Boa Vista Orchards as opposed to the grocery store.  There are a number of good wineries, but how do you beat the full experience of the Boeger Winery, which starts out anyone’s Apple Hill tour as it is located practically at the foot of Carson Road.

As you drive down the long entry way into the valley of the gorgeous Boeger acres, you feel that you are entering another world––a little bit mid 19th Century and a little bit Land of Oz.  The site dates back to 1850, developed by the Fossati-Lombardo family, with the original house, cellar and distillery in use today.  A modern building houses a busy tasting room and gift shop.  During Prohibition the vines came out and the pears went in.  After the pear blight the ranch was sold to Greg and Sue Boeger who converted it back to vineyards and cultivated the surviving original old vines as well.  1974 was opening day.  Since then the famous Merlot has been served at the White House and the Boeger Zinfandel was presented to Queen Elizabeth II. in her majesty’s 1982 visit to California.  Now grown and well studied in the family business, son Justin continues the art as Head Winemaker.  I personally love the Hangtown Red, which is an ever changing blend of left over grapes.  My friend Laura and I tasted the unique red wine when we were back visiting for our high school reunion and Laura walked away with a case.

Able’s Apple Acres, run by four generations, has a very good location at the corner of Carson and Hassler, so they get the traffic going two ways.  Across the street is a pond with ducks quacking, surrounded by green grass and a white fence.  Below the picnic barn and bake shop is a cellar burrowed into the side of the hill that sometimes had a haunted house for October.  The halls were made of stacked hay bales and it was under populated with ghosts, but I liked it when I was small.  This was a good place for pumpkins and I liked their apple fritters a lot, though my brother swears by the apple fritters at High Hill further up Carson.

Boa Vista is run by Carl Visman, the brother of George Visman who started High Hill.  Boa Vista is a terrific road side farmer’s market where you can pick up your produce and apple goodies as well has buy lunch and eat it on their picnic tables with one of the most picturesque views around.  Branching off from this spot is North Canyon Road, which takes you to the rather large El Dorado Orchards.  I think of this place as the Grand Daddy of the apple barns because it seemed like it had the most going on when I was a kid.  It was chiefly the place where I got my caramel apples and there was that big craft fair where my mother and Val Sullivan had their booth that started The Last Straw and where there was a train that took a trip around the pond called the Apple Ridge Express.  You really parked it and spent some time when you went to El Dorado Orchards and our trips to the area with out of town visiting friends and relatives would always start with that farm.

George Visman was born in Placerville in 1929.  After schooling and military service, Visman returned to El Dorado County and bought the Gatlin Ranch in 1961.  He renamed the place High Hill and his sons, Jerry and David, continue on in the family business, serving some 100,000 guests a season.  High Hill is the other really big one and has taken the place of El Dorado Orchards in my heart as the real Grand Daddy, for it’s such a lovely spot and it serves anything you could possibly want from an apple ranch.  It may have been behind El Dorado Orchards in the 1970s in terms of knowing how to best carter to the tourists, but it caught up fairly quickly.  The view across the fishing pond is wonderful.  You can rent a pole and catch a fish.  There is a campus of buildings housing produce, lunch items, chocolates, and my favorite apple pie––a mountain of apples encased in a perfect crust.  You can watch the mill make apple cider and there is an apple pealing machine that dates back to 1850.  When I was a kid they even gave helicopter rides.  Their craft fair is tucked away in a barn-like atmosphere of stalls that tunnels under the big pie house and expansive deck.  You can really spend some time there and have a full afternoon.

By Christmas it all comes to a close, but in the spring I used to like to take long bike rides up Carson Road.  Sometimes I’d only go as far as Able’s and other times I’d make it to Boa Vista.  Then the real fun was whizzing all the way back down to Boeger’s Winery and the end of Carson Road.  Spring is a nice time in Apple Hill too.  A few of the barns are open, but mostly the area is quiet and it is possible to feel that you have Carson road to yourself.  However, once you pass August, the orchard covered hills are packed with traffic and that idea to band the farmers together as an answer to a pear disaster shows itself to be an inspiration that for nearly fifty years  has benefitted the whole county.

No explanation needed.