I make no claim to be a horticulturalist, sadly. However I had always assumed apples to be a temperate climate fruit, so I was a little surprised to see an apple tree with a stony, snow-capped alpine mountain as a backdrop.

However here's a fun fact... if you head north east from here, following the southern side of the alps, you will eventually hit another semi-autonomous region of Italia. Specifically, it is a region named South Tyrol. It's a region where German is spoken more commonly than Italian.

(Don't ask, It's a long story.)

Anyway, it's an alpine region like Valle d'Aosta.

South Tyrol claims to be the single largest apple growing region in Europe, with every second apple in Italia, and every 10th one in Europe, coming from there.

It should therefore be unsurprising that we also find apples here.

(This was written before I read the following on the "agriculture" page of Valle d'Aosta's official web site:
Approximately 600 hectares of the central valley are cultivated as orchards, almost entirely dedicated to apples and pears, divided into some typical mountain varieties, including: "reinette", "golden" and "starking".

600 hectares (1,483 acres)? That's a chunk of territory.)