While hiking in the Hudson River Valley, just an hour outside of New York City, we came across few wild wineberry bushes. Wineberries are a species of raspberry with origins in eastern Asia. They have very large, hairy calices, as you can see in the photo. A man we met on the trail told us that these berries were once used to make wine, since grapes do not grow well in this region.

They were a little bit bitter — I wonder if they weren’t quite ripe yet.

Here is a view of the Hudson River looking south from one of the white Breakneck Ridge trails.