"Bred out" is a bit of a misnomer here. Apples varieties are propagated clonally through grafting. However, each new cloned tree originates from a single twig of a previous tree, and that twig originates from a single cell of the donor tree. Since cell division is not a perfect process, point mutations can accumulate over the generations from this process. In the case of Red Delicious, selections of point mutations (known as "sports") for storage life, color, and conical shape have resulted in the uninspiring, insipid thing we call a Red Delicious apple.
I have a tree of the original Delicious apple, which was a seedling found in an orchard near Sumner, Iowa, not far from where I live in NE Iowa. Preservationists have propagated this tree for minimal mutation. It is a slightly larger apple than commercial Red Delicious, ripens green with red blush, very firm, sweet with mild acidity, and moderate storage potential. Not my favorite apple of the 30 or so in my orchard, but one well worth growing.
Where you grow an apple also matters a great deal. Cox Orange Pippen may be great in Nova Scotia, which is not unlike it's Northern England home range, but it's a crappy apple in the mid-South, and can't be ripened reliably at all where I live.
Depends of course on the use to which I'm putting the apple. If I had to reduce to a single variety in the orchard, I'd probably grow Liberty (not an heirloom, but rather a university-bred disease resistant variety created in the 1950s). Great eating fresh off the tree (if, like me, you like a tart, but not overly tannic, crisp eater), makes great dried apples, and decent unfermented juice. I would choose Honeycrisp (an even younger variety) over Liberty, if it weren't so damned hard to grow well. For keepers, I'd go with Black Oxford. For pies, it's hard to beat Beacon or Charlamoff (which is known by at least a dozen different names that are all somehow or other derived from Charlemagne, or Carolingian). I also like Calville Blanc for pies.
I have a tree of the original Delicious apple, which was a seedling found in an orchard near Sumner, Iowa, not far from where I live in NE Iowa. Preservationists have propagated this tree for minimal mutation. It is a slightly larger apple than commercial Red Delicious, ripens green with red blush, very firm, sweet with mild acidity, and moderate storage potential. Not my favorite apple of the 30 or so in my orchard, but one well worth growing.
Where you grow an apple also matters a great deal. Cox Orange Pippen may be great in Nova Scotia, which is not unlike it's Northern England home range, but it's a crappy apple in the mid-South, and can't be ripened reliably at all where I live.