No Taste, No Smell--How Sweet It Is!

They sold no wine before its time at Michael’s Waterside restaurant in Montecito: What they were sampling in those dozens of polished glasses wasn’t wine and it wasn’t for sale.

Oh sure, the experts and the critics sipped and swirled and spat out each vintage. But when judges finished, it was water, water from Huntington Beach’s municipal water supply that finished first Tuesday in a blind taste test involving 12 California cities.

The waters tested by the American Institute of Wine and Food came from Sacramento, San Francisco, Beverly Hills, Huntington Beach, San Diego, San Jose, Santa Cruz, Santa Barbara, Goleta, Montecito, Carpinteria and Ventura. Second- and third-place awards went to San Jose and Santa Cruz.

The AIWF was founded by chef Julia Child, who also founded the group’s Santa Barbara chapter, which conducted the competition.

The seven judges, who also were responsible for collecting the samples, were food writers and food industry representatives from around the state. None, however, came from Orange County. Like the others, Huntington Beach’s sample was collected over Labor Day weekend--to preserve freshness. It came from the home of Catherine Hare, of Garfield Avenue, whose sister is a friend of the competition’s organizer, Arthur von Wiesenberger. Von Wiesenberger is the author of the book “H2O” and a member of AIWF’s Santa Barbara chapter.

Criteria for judging, he said, were aroma, appearance, taste, aftertaste and overall impression. A bottled water from Arkansas was used as a bench mark. As in a wine tasting, judges tasted by swirling the water around in their mouths and spitting it out.

According to Elaine Corn, one of the judges from the Sacramento Bee, Huntington Beach’s water triumphed “chiefly because it escaped criticism. It didn’t smell bad. It didn’t taste bad, and in a water competition, having almost no qualities at all brings a sample to the top.”

Alas, no one from Huntington Beach was present to accept the Golden Tap Award, a trophy topped by a faucet with a plaque at the base, reading “Best Tasting Tap Water, 1990.” Von Wiesenberger said the trophy was supposed to have been dropped off by a San Diego judge on her way home, but city officials who were contacted Wednesday said they knew nothing about it until informed by the reporter.

“That’s nice to know,” said Ed Barckley, the city’s water quality coordinator. “This is the first I’ve heard of it . . . in past taste tests in the county we’ve come in first.”

The victory of Huntington Beach’s water “doesn’t surprise me,” said city spokeswoman Kaye MacLeod. “You don’t have to hold your nose when you drink it.”

About 70% of the city’s water supply comes from municipally owned wells, and recent tests of the well water detected no organic chemicals, MacLeod said. The main additive is chloramine, she said. Until 1987 Huntington Beach was also one of the few cities in Orange County that fluoridates its water, aiding in the prevention of tooth decay. A three-year hiatus on fluoridation ends this November.