Identikit and main features
This apple takes its name from the colour of its peel and from the place where it is cultivated, Torriana, near Barge. The blooming period is early, generally it corresponds to the second week of April, while the harvesting takes place in the second half of October. The fruit is medium sized and it has a crushed shape, with a medium-short peduncule. Rough rusty-coloured peel with large lenticels. Its pulp is of a course texture, its taste is acidulous sweet and its colour creamy white. These apples are particularly suitable to be baked.
Area of production
The grey reinette apple of Torriana is cultived in frazione S. Martino, Torriana and in the whole municipality of Barge, but it is possible to find it also in the towns of Bagnolo and Cavour.
History
The grey Reinette apple of Torriana has been cultivated for a long time in the municipality of Barge. In 1905 this cultivation has spread also in the areas of Bagnolo and Cavour. This product is also mentioned in the exhibitors’ lists of the 1937 “Ottobrata”. This is the queen of the baked apples and, in the past, in Pinerolo, these apple were put into compotes: at the end of the winter season the “grey apples” were immersed in water for two months and covered with straw and Luserna stone-lab to ferment. At the end of 1800 quintals of these apples were produced and exported to Germany, United Kingdom and Egypt. Today its production is increasingly reduced. In the last ten years there was a small recovery and so new implants have been realised.
