Binet Rouge Apple

Binet Rouge is a traditional French cider apple from Normandy, long valued for its aromatic, bittersweet fruit and exceptional pollination qualities. The small to medium apples are greenish-yellow with red striping, producing firm, fine-grained flesh that is sweet, slightly bitter, and distinctly flavorful—excellent for cider but unsuitable for fresh eating. The tree is moderately vigorous, frost-tolerant at bloom, and known for heavy biennial crops, though it is prone to scab, mildew, and fire blight. Used historically in Calvados production, Binet Rouge remains a highly regarded cider variety. In terms of hardiness, Binet Rouge surprisingly bounced back after a cold 2024 winter in which the Western Agriculture Research station experienced near -40F. Not sure whether it can tolerate much colder than that.

Note: This is our first year growing Binet Rouge in Montana; information provided is from established sources rather than firsthand experience.

According to Western Agriculture Research Center in Corvallis, MT, "Binet Rouge is a small stature tree that produces prolifically in bearing years and must be thinned to reduce fruit load and biennial bearing. It is highly susceptible to fire blight and should be managed carefully to reduce risk of infection. Binet Rouge, while not extremely vigorous, does produce several branches with good angles for training on either a trellis or as a standalone tree. Four years after planting, it has yet to reach the top wire in WARC’s high density trellis system on both G935 and M26 rootstock."

Images Courtesy of Wikimedia Users APictche