Year: 2018

October 02, 2018 at 01:17PM Jess Altieri picks up the glass to the right of her plate and gives it a swirl, holding the base as to not change the temperature of the liquid she’s about to sip. After tilting it back and giving it a whiff, she takes her first taste, making sure it hits all the flavor points on her tongue before finally swallowing. Then, she sets her water back down. As one of two water sommeliers in the country, Altieri is attuned to the minute taste differences that would be indistinguishable to the untrained tongue. She can taste if a water is high in minerals, like calcium (which is milky and smooth, though too much calcium makes it taste chalky), or electrolytes (slightly salty). She knows if what she’s drinking is Vichy or Smartwater without catching a glimpse of the bottle. And she knows what foods pair best with each brand. But before she was swirling water in her glass, Altieri focused on wine. She was—and still is—a certified wine sommelier and California wine appellation specialist. “As a wine somm, I would travel the world, going to Italy, Austria, France, New Zealand, and Hong Kong,” she says. “I realized that at 90 percent of the dinners and wine tastings I attended, water was offered and served before the wine and dinner, yet the serving staff knew very little about the water or how it was paired with the meal being served.” She started doing a little digging

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