This week we resumed with the attendance of guests. Olivier Gasselin of Chelsea's 'Bluebird' restaurant graced us with his presence again. His astute observations are always welcome, whilst his cautious approach keeps us focused on what we are experiencing.
A surprise was to come an hour into the session when Swissotel's Alan Calzari knocked on the door with Mandarin Oriental's Markus Lindner! This added more opinions and observations from seasoned F&B professionals.
If the concept of recommending waters with wines is ever going to gain market acceptance, it is vital that the decision makers in the industry gain exposure to our tastings whilst they are still an imperfect science, in order to understand that this isn't something that we are making up as we go along!
With sparkling waters today we sampled:
2007 Riesling Eden Valley, Terra Barossa
2006 Clearwater, Chardonnay Marlborough New Zealand Sherwood Estate
2007 Rioja Blanco Barrel Fermented Viura (10% Malvasia) Luis Canas
2006 Viognier 'Mill Road Vineyard' Eberle Paso Robles
Nicolas also suggested that we calculate the entire cost of Minerals & Terroir to date, in terms of wines, waters and our time...I have no idea what that is likely to be. Needless to say, we wouldn't have been putting our spare hours into this if cost was an issue.
Highlights were the emergence (finally) of a clear leader in terms of a sparkling water that has begun to show more consistently across the white wines. It is a French naturally sparkling water that is high in bicarbonates and sodium.
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