Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Le Gout d'Eau: a horizontal tasting.

Notes: All of the following were tasted chilled, in the Riedel glass. TDS means "total dissolved solids" in mg/L. Chemical facts from FineWaters.com.

2008 Evian (Évian-les-Bains, France)($2/1.5L)
NOSE: Very clean and refreshing. Like a whiff of clean air on a cold rainy day. PALATE: Soft and round, with no bitterness or dryness. Almost a slight sweetness. The softness contributes to a nice impression of weight and viscosity when chilled. Clean, refreshing finish with a hint of sweetness. 90-RA
pH = 7.18
TDS = unknown

2007 Icelandic Glacial (Thorlakshofn, Iceland)($2/L)

NOSE: clean, fresh. Like a whiff of clean air on a cold snowy day. PALATE: thinner than the Evian, but again, free of bitterness and dryness. clean, refreshing finish. Bluer. 92-RA
pH = 7.75
TDS = 68 mg/L


























2008 Chateau Tap de Scully (4th Floor) ($0)

NOSE: Smells like... a bathroom (go figure), a little paper towel action, and a little dirty beach smells. PALATE: I feel like I just scraped two-day-old salmon off of a rusty iron fence and ate it with some dusty stones from Lyngso (Bay Area folks, you know what I mean!). The bitter dryness starts attacking my palate at once, and lingers unpleasantly on the finish, which is very dusty-rock-like. 67-RA.
pH = I don't know.
TDS = I don't want to know.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The TDS of Evian is 309. It has very high nitrates of around 3 (10 is illegal) and contains, slight levels of arsenic.

nitrates are washed of pesticides from agriculture.

the lower the nitrates the better.

Rajiv Ayyangar said...

Better for health or better tasting? I'm mainly concerned with taste.