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Home / FineWaters Diary |
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Shopping the Day Before Yesterday, my husband and I shopped for our picnic lunch at home. Our good friends Tom and Deborah, who had just moved to Las Vegas, Nevada, were in town. They joined us for lunch - a long, leisurely lunch that left plenty of time to catch up on their recent move. Sam and I did not want to cook and, more nostalgically, we wanted to relive the wonderful picnic lunches we had had in the Dordogne Valley in France on our recent hiking trip there with Wilderness Travel. To recreate those menus, we visited a few of the specialty stores in the area. We Plan Our Picnic Lunch First stop was Pascal Epicerie & Wine store in Newport Beach, California, where the food is French as are the wines (and is the fine restaurant, Pascal, next door). My husband bought wine, pates, and cheese, and I looked for fine waters. They only sold small bottles of Evian (France) or Sole (Italy), generally for consumption with the take-out food sold in the store. All this writing and thinking about water had made me thirsty, so I purchased a bottle of Sole sparkling mineral water for $1.99 (330 ml), rated FineWaters Balance Light with just a small amount of effervescence. It had been stored in a cool, but not too cold, refrigerator (less than the temperature for storing white wines), and it hit the spot. Nearer to home, we finished our shopping at Bristol Farms. As nearly as I could tell - because there were different bottled water displays in several local locations in the store - Bristol Farms had between 10 and 12 different brand names of bottled water, both still and sparkling. I had not consulted our resident FineWaters expert, Dr. Michael Mascha, about cheese and water pairings, so I purchased several waters based, in part, on their attractive, unusual or interesting packaging. Pairing Tips for Cheese and Water Later, Michael coached me on pairing water and cheeses, reminding me to serve the water at room temperature. That definitely makes sense. Cheese is best served at room temperature, and the water should match. It definitely should not "cool down" the cheese, which would degrade the flavor and texture. "Remember," he advised, "with water it's about mouthfeel, not taste as it is with wine. You are not matching flavors, you're matching the mouthfeel." Michael says that "Taste + Smell + Mouthfeel = Flavor." When describing the flavor of water the most important factor is the mouthfeel, which is generated by the size, amount and distribution of the bubbles or the absence of it. Carbonation, or its absence, he says, together with the size amount and distribution of the bubbles are a significant contribution to the mouthfeel of water and the prime focus on matching water and food. Subtle textures go better with FineWaters Balance Still or Light whereas louder textures are more suited to a FineWaters Balance Classic or Bold. "And if you get adventuresome," he teased, "you can try opposing the mouthfeel." "Not yet," I say. For our picnic, Michael recommended a FineWaters Balance Effervescent or a Still with cheese. With a stronger or harder cheese, he suggested a Classic that has a little bit bigger bubble. A FineWaters Balance Classic with Salami As it turns out I had purchased three different brands of Classic water and two Still waters, and we had all soft cheeses. I served one of the Classic bottled waters - Gerolsteiner (Germany), a naturally sparkling water with a high mineral content (2527 TDS) at $2.49 for 1 liter - with the salami. Bottled since 1888, Gerolsteiner comes from the Gerolstein volcanic rock. The town is located in the heart of the Eifel - the wooded highland between Rhine, Moselle and Luxemburg that is filled with extinct volcanoes and crater lakes. Today, Gerolstein is a leading center of the world's mineral springs industry. As with many European waters, it comes in a glass bottle. I enjoyed the Gerolsteiner with the salami - but not the cheeses and pates. It matched the spiciness of the salamis: a Rosette de Lyon saucisson (Pascal) and a dry salami from San Francisco (Bristol Farms). FineWaters Balance Still Works Best with Soft Cheeses The FineWaters Balance Still bottled water was ICE AGE (Canada) at $2.15 for 1.5 liters - a premium glacier water sourced from British Columbia's pristine, remote and protected Coastal Glacier Range at Alpine Creek, Toba Inlet. It is "naturally micro-structured by ice filtration from a time long ago," says the bottle's label, and is "documented to be absolutely the world's purest and softest water." It comes in a cobalt blue plastic bottle, which has been trademarked by the New Attitude Beverage Corp. of El Segundo, California. This water, to my mind, was an excellent accompaniment to the pates, cheeses and white wines. The pates included a chicken liver mousse truffle pate (Bristol Farms) and a country pork pate (Pascal). In the cheese category, we had a special double cream Brie, which Pascal calls its "house" Brie. I can't remember a richer, smoother, more melt-in-your-mouth Brie. The still Ice Age was the right mouthfeel for the soft, creamy cheeses. It also did not compete with the white wine, one of my favorites, a Kistler chardonnay (1998 Dutton Ranch) from the Russian River Valley. The other cheeses - a Carr Valley goat cheese, a Petit Basque, and a chevre La Pointe de Bique (all from Pascal) rounded out the selection. A nice fruit accent was the Turkish apricots from Wild Oats. Just to make sure no one left hungry, Sam threw in melon with Serrano Prosciutto, and a homemade chopped cucumber, heirloom tomato and red bell pepper salad flavored with balsamic vinegar and fresh basil. Our four-hour lunch was a pleasant way to spend the afternoon. We we ended by promising to come to Las Vegas to visit our friends and celebrate our respective wedding anniversaries. Stores Pascal Epicerie & Wine 1000 Bristol Street Plaza Newport, Bristol and Jamboree Newport Beach, CA 92660 Tel: 949-261-9041 Fax: 949-261-9422 Bristol Farms 2080 Bellflower Blvd. Long Beach, CA 90815 Tel: 562-430-4134 Fax: 562-431-1396 Wild Oats Natural Marketplace 6550 E. Pacific Coast Highway Long Beach, CA 90803 Tel: 562-598-8687 Travel Wilderness Travel 1102 Ninth Street Berkeley, CA 94710 Tel: 1-800-368-2794 Tel: 510-558-2488 Fax: 510-558-2489 Fine Waters Sole (Italy) Evian (France) Gerolsteiner (Germany) ICE AGE (Canada) FineWaters Balance™ Wines Kistler Vineyards 4707 Vine Hill Road Sebastopol, CA Tel: 707-823-5603
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