It is human to compare and just about very new fig grower does ask the question, which tastes best. Same thing happens with other fruit. Tell me the best variety of tomato? Many say Honeycrisp is the best apple, my favorite is Jonathan, I like em tart. I don't have a problem with UCD or anyone else choosing what they think is a standard or the best or whatever. We all have to decide for ourselves and we all have to grow them in our own conditions.  At least it's a guide to get you on your way.

Then it's not a useful benchmark.  How many people can even *ask* someone they know in the fig-growing community what it tastes like, when it's so rare and hard to grow?

VdB, Adriatic, Barnisotte, Noire de Caromb/Kathleen Black, these are much better benchmarks.  It's not as if everyone would like the "style" of Ischia Black anyways.  Even the Coll de Dam or Zidi figs are better benchmarks, waaaaay more people have had them, even if you have to use Google Translate a lot.  Liquidity has to be kept in mind here, as well.

All standard goes out the door after 6 pints of Guinness.

My Vista (=VdB by DNA at USDA) was the fig I set out to meet or beat when I started looking for 3-4 more figs. It is still the benchmark that I would judge other figs by. There are other figs that are quite good, and that I would be quite happy with, but if I had only one, this would be it.

Having said that, there are some that are better. It is my current opinion that Black Madeira is as good as it gets. But it needs more warmth than I have to ripen most of the fruits. So taste is better, performance is not as good. Those two things are often a trade off. If I get a couple dozen BM in a season, I am happy because it is that good. But I get hundreds from Vista - so that provides happiness in a different way.

Here is on day's picking of Vista in 2009:



Do not forget that taste is also subjective.

Can't speak about the "blacks"...but for the "whites" it will be hard to beat "Golden Atreano" when grown to perfection.  Just a perfect-growing tree, great crops, and BIG, tender-skinned, golden-yellow figs, loaded with honey-figgy flavors.  If you taste "cucumbers" you have not ripened the fruit to perfection.  It's a tough act to follow.

Frank

Ischia Black would not be rare ,or hard to grow,if Someone would introduce a healthy Specimen.
Ischia Island was inhabited by Greeks in antiquity,so it could have come from Grece initially.
I am sure there are clean healthy specimen of this cultivar in Italy and Greece.
The infected specimen we get from UCD,is the only one hard to grow.
and so far it is the only source here in the US.
Here are some pixies of Ischia Black in my Garden and at UC Davis.
This is a super Tasty fig!