Apple orchard near Burlington, WI: Brightonwoods Orchard

Just a quick reminder that we’re now well into apple season, and that one of the best places in our area to experience this fleeting magnificence is Brightonwoods Orchard near Burlington, Wisconsin.

Brightonwoods is not an orchard you visit to pick apples right from the trees. As shown above, the apples are pre-picked and sorted into handy bins inside an outbuilding. You just grab a bag and select the ones you want. This way, the apples are taken from the trees by people who know what they’re doing — and we, the apple-loving consumers, do not have to traipse through an orchard slipping on rotten apples and getting poked by branches while reaching for the fruit.

What’s special about Brightonwoods is the wide variety of unusual heirloom or heritage apples they grow and sell. Each type is accompanied by a short description with notes on its qualities as far as eating, cooking, and storage are concerned.

In addition to apples, Brightonwoods Orchard offers some outstanding apple cider, plus other produce, such as the delicious delicata squash we first encountered there.

Across the yard in the big barn you’ll find the ÆppelTreow Winery, which is definitely something to tour and sample. However, having purchased a couple of bottles of their table wines, I still do not believe that good wine comes from either apples or Wisconsin. I will stick with their hard cider.

View Mark Czerniec’s Racine & beyond in a larger map

Both operations are located at 1072 288th Ave (a.k.a. Kenosha County Highway “B”), about 8 miles east of Burlington and immediately north of Richard Bong State Recreation Area, making for a picturesque drive through the surrounding scenery.