I don’t know exactly when Vichy Catalan, the bottled water from Catalunya, started springing up in the UK. I first noticed it during lockdown, when London’s upmarket grocery stores boomed as money saved on going out in Soho was often spent on imported food products.
Like so many others, I became a slave to Sardinian tomatoes, small-batch cheeses from the British countryside, pét-nat sparkling wine and mortadella from mad Italian farmers. I have always loved quality produce but things ramped up then.
Vichy Catalan was another crazy lockdown favourite of mine. It looked excellent in my kitchen alongside Perello olives and Torres crisps. This colourful triptych costs close to £10. No wonder I can’t get a mortgage.
I was drawn to the bottle. Inspired by Antoni Gaudí, a hero of Barcelona, the glass is embossed as mosaic, and the label, in ochre, mustard yellow, brown and sky blue, stands out against the boring propositions from British competitors. Bottles of Malvern water look like they might date back to 1622, when priests first monetised a “holy well”. The packaging needs an overhaul.
Vichy Catalan is younger, at least as far as it being a business. It was only in 1989 that Dr Modest Furest Roca is said to have “scientifically confirmed” the mineral-medicinal properties of thermal water emerging from a spring in Caldes de Malavella (near Girona) at 60C, naturally carbonated. Dr Modest decided to acquire the spring, alongside the adjacent lands.
Before long, Vichy Catalan was being bottled and sold in Catalunya, and later across wider Spain. Expansion overseas began around 15 years ago.
I hear Vichy has around a 40% market share in Spain. It’s beloved thanks to its saltiness and the fact that it is a distinctly natural alternative to booze.
Sommeliers I know love it. It works excellently with white fish, I find, and rustic Italian-style dishes made with cannellini beans and pork.
The water has approximately one gram of salt per litre, which is high. It’s much too salty for some.
Nevertheless, Vichy Catalan is full of body and flavour, standing up to food and complementing it rather than just being a modicum of hydration. It is used by mixologists to balance cocktails and works well when blended with juices, shrubs or other soft drinks.
Lab tests vary but generally show the water also contains about 14mg of calcium per litre, 7.7mg of magnesium, 53mg of potassium, and 590mg of chloride. So it’s no milk (about 300mg of calcium per litre) and it doesn’t weigh up against bananas (about 400mg per fruit) but it’s good going for plain old water.
I’m not too fussed about the science, though, I just like that it’s a drink that feels special, one I can have a glass of with dinner in lieu of a beer.
It helps too that Vichy is too salty to glug; a single glass is enough. Which is handy because in the UK it is prohibitively expensive. A 1.2 litre bottle costs about £3 from one of those high-end food and wine shops I was talking about earlier.
Then again, mineral water/spring water/whatever is generally punchy however you look at it when most of us are afforded the indulgence of a tap. I have never bought bottled water to drink at home. I think it’s an absurd proposition, however poor in quality Britain’s tap water may be.
But I like that water can be viewed as special in food and drink terms. It is a life-giving force after all. And while I don’t tend to go for San Pellegrino, Perrier or Badoit in restaurants, nor care much about bottled variations from the rolling hills of Britain, I do like a glass of Vichy from time-to-time, a simple, elegant luxury.
Which, actually, is exactly what water is.
