From Johnny Appleseed to Cosmic Crisp, Here’s Everything You Need to Know About Apples in America Right Now | Food & Wine By Betsy Andrews

Hazen, the owner of Gold Ridge Organic Farms, an 88-acre orchard and olive grove in Sonoma County, cultivated [a] new apple, grafting the mutation (or “sport,” in horticultural parlance) onto rootstock and naming it “Sea Breeze.” The name is a paean to the force that, before the rise of the wine grape, once made Sonoma famous as an apple-growing mecca. “The Pacific Ocean provides the perfect cooling climate for apple trees to thrive and fully express their nuances and variations,” Hazen says. “I’m not kidding when I say I’ve met people that were brought to tears by eating the Sea Breeze.”