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What's Worse than a Water Sommelier?
Monday, June 11, 2007

A Water Sommelier Apologist.

From the WSJ:

“Water sommelier” turned out not to be the pseudo-job that Time’s Joel Stein expected it would be, he says after lunching with bottled water specialist Michael Mascha (no link available). Mr. Mascha, a former wine sommelier who has written a book about specialty water, quickly allayed Mr. Stein’s skepticism by pre-emptively declaring that water has no smell, little taste and costs too much in most restaurants. But Mr. Mascha insists that high-quality bottled waters have unique mouthfeels that can affect a fine-dining experience. In Mr. Mascha’s view, water, whether still or sparkling, has three distinct qualities: the size and amount of bubbles; whether it is alkaline (generally sweet) or acid (generally sour); and density, measured by total dissolved solids, or TDS.

To his surprise, Mr. Stein found himself relishing each water pairing Mr. Mascha selected — a Vichy Catalan from Spain for beef tartar; a medium-carbonated, high-calcium water with tagliatelle; and an almost mineral-free New Zealand water named Antipodes with a salad of tomatoes and Burrata, an Italian cheese. As a guide, Mr. Mascha suggests treating high-TDS waters (above 800) like red wines and low-TDS waters like white ones. He also recommends pairing water that has small bubbles with subtler dishes to avoid overpowering the food.

Labels: Food

Posted by B Feiler at 7:01 AM
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