Today it was time to pick the Koidu Reinettes, Centennial Crab, Red China, more Pamela Plums and a seedling from the Isle Au Haut off the Maine coast. I’m calling it Gauguin after the famous French impressionist who spent a lot of time on another island, albeit far from Maine.

“Gauguin” was discovered by Andy Brennan and Polly Giragosian when they did a sweep inventory of every apple tree on Isle Au Haut. I went out and collected budwood with them from about a hundred seedlings and then bud-grafted them all on the farm. A couple years later I gave the trees to Andy and Polly, and they planted them at their New York farm.

Recently I found one tree left in our nursery that I somehow forgot to dig and send to them. The label said, “Cogan 0 Church Road First Right.” Fairly explicit but, as I recall, it didn’t match their own notes. So we never dug the tree. Now it’s happily fruiting for the third year. I could call it “Cogan 0 Church Road First Right” but I thought it needed a proper name. Cogan sounds like Gauguin. Isle Au Haut was settled at least for a while by French. The small, yellow apple has a muted, rosy pink-red blush and some russet netting—beautiful (like a Gauguin painting), and tasty, so voila!