By Scott Morgan
For Pam and Gary Mount, so much comes down to the mighty peach. Back in 1975, when the Mounts bought Terhune Orchards, peaches were one of the only three crops (along with apples and pears) that Terhune grew.
The Mounts have added a few crops since then, but it took the farm until last year to have a peach festival.
Not surprisingly, it went swimmingly, and Terhune is set to host its second peach festival on Aug. 2 and 3. The big difference this year, however, is the new way you can enjoy Terhune’s peaches. Specifically, peach wine.
A little more than a decade ago, the Mounts’ daughter, Tannwen, returned from six years near California’s Napa Valley and urged the family to plant some grapes. That original five-acre venture grew into a winery that has already caught the eye of the governor. In 2013, Terhune’s “Just Peachy” wine took the gold at the New Jersey Governor’s Cup, as the state’s best fruit wine.
The peach wine will be part of a set of wines that will be paired with various dishes from about a dozen restaurants at the festival. There will also be a tasting in Terhune’s tasting room, where parents can take their own time out and enjoy a bit of the grape while the kids romp around in the festival.
Of course, the wine tasting and pairings aren’t just for parents. Mount says that the presence of the vineyard and the tasting room have drawn a whole new type of clientele to the farm. Couples often visit, as do singles, as do groups of friends who may be on a tasting tour, she says. They hire a driver and visit various wineries and tasting events, sampling the local nectars and mingling with other oenophiles. Tickets for the festival are $5, and it’s $10 for the wine tasting and festival.
The Saturday of the festival, Aug. 2, is also the date of Mount’s annual canning class. But if you miss the August festivities, there’s Terhune’s pick-your-own annual apple day coming in the third week of September at their Van Kirk Road location.
Terhune’s not all festivals, of course. The orchard is still a working farm that, as Mount likes to point out, sells everything from apples to zucchini. And a major reason people keep coming in “to get their fix” of fruits and vegetables grown there, Mount says, is because the staff picks the crops every day.
During the U-pick times, people pick fruits at all levels of ripeness, but the Mounts and their staff know something fundamental to deliciousness: “It’s amazing how much different a peach tastes when you leave it on the tree an extra two or three days,” she says.
And, ultimately, people keep returning for Terhune’s 40 crops because, well, the farm doesn’t like to sell produce that’s not ready to go yet.
“That’s an important part of why people think of us as their hometown family farm,” Mount says. “And that’s our goal. We like to make people happy.”
Terhune Orchards is located at 330 Cold Soil Road in Princeton.
Phone: (609) 924-2310. On the Web: terhuneorchards.com.
Gary and Pam Mount of Terhune Orchards stand with the peaches set to be featured at the farm’s peach festival in August. (Staff photo by Lexie Yearly.),
