Linda Falkenstein
Hall of Ideas J at Monona Terrace is full of the water elite on Wednesday morning. On a table at the front of the room, 60 clear plastic cups of water, labeled only by number, sit waiting to be judged by a five-person panel. At this table I will be making my water-judging debut.
This is the 33rd Best-Tasting Water in Wisconsin contest, put on by the Wisconsin Water Association. The winner goes on to compete nationally at the 2019 American Water Works Association convention.
Madison last won the state contest in 2013, says Madison Water Utility public information officer Amy Barrilleaux. “We usually try to enter from a different well every time,” she says. That year, she asked around, “like, ‘Hey, what’s your favorite well?’ and from that I culled a few different ones, and we did an internal taste test. Well 12 at Whitney Way and the Beltline won, so we entered that and it won the state competition and went on to compete in Boston.”
This year, Madison’s competing water is from its newest well, Well 31, on the southeast side.
Water, like anything that comes from the ground, has a terroir — the special flavor imparted to a comestible by the environment it comes from.
“With water, you tend to like what you’re used to,” says Barrilleaux. “If you grew up with surface water, that’s different from groundwater.” Groundwater — what Madison’s wells draw from — is harder, with more minerality. Surface water, drawn from lakes or rivers, is “softer on the palate,” says Barrilleaux.
“We talk about eating local — this is drinking local. This is water that comes from the aquifer under our feet. It’s ours,” says Barrilleaux. Winning for any community is “a point of pride.”
Twelve water utilities are competing in this year’s competition: Appleton, Kenosha, Two Rivers, Neenah, Cudahy, Manitowoc, Green Bay, Sheboygan and Milwaukee (all surface water utilities) as well as Madison, Rib Mountain and Stevens Point (groundwater). That’s just a small fraction of the 580-some water utilities in the state. While you might think the purpose behind such a contest is to encourage people to consume tap water instead of littering the environment with plastic from bottled water, it’s more of an insider assessment of what water utilities are doing right, and what could be improved.
First, the surface waters compete. Then the groundwaters compete. The winner from each will then go head-to-head.
Judges are supposed to consider color, odor and taste. None of the water has any color that I can discern, although a couple of the samples do smell (and taste) a bit like chlorine — but only because I am trying to find anything to distinguish the samples. They all seem okay to me. Next to me on the judging dais, Kurt Vause of the American Water Works Association says that some of these samples are “not up to snuff.”
Judge Dan Carey, brewmaster at New Glarus Brewing, says he and his staff taste water at the brewery every day; it’s the most important ingredient of beer. “Water is not an easy business,” he says, to applause from the roomful of water utility employees. Two of the surface water samples really stand out to Carey as “soft and clean.”
Oddly, despite the fact that I am doing nothing but sipping water, I am very thirsty.
Because there are so many surface water samples, we do a semi-final round, winnowing to the top two. For the semi-final, Neenah bests Green Bay in a close race, 43 to 40 points. Neenah then takes on Madison, the winner of the groundwater sampling.
Neenah’s water is what I can now definitely discern as soft. It actually does have a mouthfeel, and that mouthfeel is “soft.” While it’s pleasant, I find it somehow not refreshing. Especially at room temperature, the proper way to judge water.
Up against Neenah’s water, which originates in Lake Winnebago, Madison’s water is easy to pick out. It is crisper. Judge Peter Geipel, senior barista trainer from Colectivo Coffee, says Madison’s water has “more minerality, with a satisfying mouthfeel,” but Vause of the AWWA preferred Neenah’s — “It’s clearer, and I got a slight smell out of Madison,” Vause says. “It’s harder and more salty. Neenah’s is more neutral.”
While Madison won the popular vote — drink up, Madisonians — it’s perhaps worth noting that the judges split, three to two. Polarized in water, as in everything else in the country these days, it seems.
