The Major Water Brands

A few years ago, there were only a small number of choices for bottled water, but consumers today find more than 900 brands in the marketplace. We've created this primer on some of the major brands to take the guesswork out of your next trip down the grocery store aisle.


Acqua Panna

For centuries, Italians have fondly referred to Acqua Panna as “baby’s water,” raising their children from infancy on this clear, crisp water because of its lightness, high quality and purity—appropriate for even a newborn’s delicate digestive system. The source is located 3,700 feet high in the serene Tuscan Apennines of Northern Italy. Known for centuries to nobleman, hunters, shepherds and farmers for its remarkable purity and freshness, Acqua Panna Natural Spring Water comes from a pristine source, located on a vast, unspoiled natural reserve 25 miles north of Florence. The source is nestled among beechwoods, chestnut forests and lush meadows on the slopes of Mount Gazzaro in a town named Scarperia. Legend has it the ancient Romans built the only road stretching from Northern to Southern Italy through Scarperia—and past the source—to provide well-deserved refreshment to weary travelers. It is said that even Amerigo Vespucci sipped from the Panna source.

Arrowhead Mountain Spring Water

Rainfall and snowmelt percolating through soil and metamorphic rock give rise to four springs in California’s San Bernardino Mountains. The water was first bottled in 1894 and by 1905 was being transported on “water trains” to consumers in San Bernardino and Los Angeles. Today Arrowhead Mountain Spring Water is transported from the source for bottling in Southern and Northern California and Arizona. The water is micron filtered (to remove particles of sediment), ozonized, passed under ultraviolet light and lightly mineralized (between 100 and 200 ppm of total dissolved solids).

Calistoga

Nestled at the north end of Napa Valley, Calistoga is a spa-resort town where a geyser second in size only to Yellowstone’s Old Faithful shoots from the ground, and people have been coming to “take the waters”—in pools and mud-baths—since before the turn of the last century. Of the town’s three commercially bottled waters, Calistoga comes from water which emerges from the ground at 212 degrees Fahrenheit and is then cooled to 39 degrees Fahrenheit for bottling. The hydrogen-sulfide aroma is removed from the water at the bottling plant by filtering it through sand. The finished water is then ozonated and carbonated. Calistoga also bottles a noncarbonated water from a Napa County spring.

Crystal Geyser

Located along the High Sierra mountain range in the town of Olancha, California, is the source of Crystal Geyser natural alpine spring water. Mount Whitney and other towering peaks of the High Sierra are a section of the Sierra Nevadas, which are approximately 270 miles long. Glacial waters have seeped over eons through cracks in the granite rocks in this range, the source of alpine spring water. Snow-melt and rain on Olancha Peak, 12,123 feet, filters through multiple geologic strata and the water surfaces at 78 degrees and is bottled at the source, 4,000 feet above sea level.

Evian

This famous non-sparkling European water comes from Source Cachat in France, where the water emerges from a tunnel in the mountain at 52.88 degrees Fahrenheit. The source is fed from the melted snow and rain that filters through glacial sand from the Vinzier Plateau over a period of fifteen years. The glacial sand is surrounded by clay, which protects the water from pollution. The water is bottled at a nearby bottling plant, which is highly automated and exceptionally hygienic.

Fiji Natural Artesian Water

The origin of Fiji Natural Artesian Water is rainfall. It is bottled at the source, taken from an aquifer beneath volcanic highlands on the main island of Viti Levu in Fiji. Fiji Natural Artesian Water was first packaged by the company’s founder, David Gilmore, to provide to guests at his exclusive Wakaya Club on Wakaya, a 2,200-acre island in the Fiji Republic. The product was launched in Florida and Los Angeles at the end of 1997 in a distinctive, square-shaped bottle, with dramatic graphics. It is said to have a smooth “mouth feel” due to its high silica content.

Gerolsteiner Spring Water

In the German style of obsessive purity and cleanliness, Gerolsteiner water follows a strict purity certification process from bottling to consumption. Originating in springs from the area of Volcanic Eifel, Gerolsteiner flows from ancient, rocky volcanic reservoirs 200 feet beneath the surface of the earth. This gives Gerolsteiner a high mineral content, including carbonic acid, which helps break down the otherwise non-water-soluble dolomite rocks in the spring and infuses the water with a variety of earthy elements. The acid, it is said, is also responsible for Gerolsteiner’s unique flavor. It is widely available in Germany and is shipped to 30 other countries around the world as Germany’s number-one water export.

Hawaiian Springs Natural Water

It begins as rain and snow falling through the cleanest air on earth, to the slopes of Mauna Loa Volcano on the Big Island of Hawaii, thousands of miles from the nearest continent. Mauna Loa is the largest mountain in the world in land mass. This pristine water filters through thousands of feet of lava rock and forms an underground water flow where it is captured at the source in Kea’au (Puna District) on Mauna Loa’s slopes. Early Hawaiians always had a reason behind the names they selected for places. Kea’au, District of Puna, means “clear, pure spring water.” Every day over one billion gallons of this unusually pure water flows underground toward the ocean to repeat its never ending cycle. Hawaiian Springs Water is bottled at the source in European tradition.

Ice Mountain

Early Indians were the first to discover Ice Mountain Spring, located in the remote woodlands of Mount Zircon, near Rumford, in central Maine. They noticed it seemed to rise and fall with the cycles of the moon and called it Moon Tide Spring. The water was first bottled by the Abbott family in 1859, and is now bottled as both still and sparkling.

 

 

Mountain Valley

This water springs from a source in a 500-acre forest in the hills between Glazypeau and Cedar Mountains, in Arkansas. Adjacent is a timberland preserve, all of which protects the Mountain Valley aquifer. It was first bottled in 1871 and has been continuously bottled since then, both as carbonated and noncarbonated water. Mountain Valley’s source emerges at 65 degrees Fahrenheit; the bottling plant draws approximately 50 gallons per minute from the spring. The source’s aquifer is estimated to be at 1,600 feet below the earth’s surface, where the water filters through levels of shale, Blakely sandstone and limestone.

Perrier

The beginning of the Perrier water dates back more than 100 million years to the Cretaceous Period, when limestone deposits began to form faults and fissures that captured water deep within the earth below what is now Vergèze, France. Hannibal’s Carthaginian army is said to have paused by the spring, Les Bouillens, in 218 B.C. Remains in the area suggest that the Romans also refreshed themselves in the waters of Perrier, which have a bit of natural carbonation. When it is bottled, extra fizz is created by adding filtered carbon monoxide gas captured at a nearby natural source.

Poland Spring

The history of Poland Spring, Maine, dates back to 1793, when the area around the spring was first settled and the Ricker family opened a small inn. Soon afterward Joseph Ricker lay dying, and to ease his fever someone fetched water from the spring. The story is that Ricker drank it and lived another 52 years to tell the tale! In 1845, Hiram Ricker began to bottle the water and, in 1893, Poland Spring was awarded the Medal of Excellence at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Today, Poland Spring comes both still and sparkling.

San Pellegrino

The spring of San Pellegrino is sequestered in the mountains north of Milan, Italy, and was first made famous by quenching the thirst of Leonardo da Vinci. Today the Fonte Termale, an opulent marbled drinking hall is a monument to the glamour of “taking the waters.” San Pellegrino’s sources are three deep springs, which emerge from the ground at 69.8 degrees Fahrenheit. The waters come from an aquifer 1,300 feet below the surface, where limestone and volcanic rocks impart unique minerals and trace elements.

Saratoga

In the southern foothills of New York’s Adirondack Mountains is the famous town of Saratoga Springs, where, in the Gay ‘90s, celebrities like Lillian Russell and Diamond Jim Brady drank Saratoga’s carbonated water from monogrammed cups. Saratoga’s original source was a hand-drilled well that went through 30 feet of sand and 150 feet of rock. Natural carbonation occurs in the water, although the water is re-injected with additional carbonation during the bottling process.

Solé

The Fonte Solé Spring is located in the foothills of the Lombardy region of the Italian Alps and has been revered for its health-giving waters since Roman times. In the Middle Ages, the source was controlled by a monastery when both plague and pestilence threatened the population. A belief grew up that those who drank from the spring would be. Today, the water is recognized as being low in sodium. The University of Pavia has declared it as being microbiologically pure. Solé is packaged in green glass bottles, both noncarbonated and lightly carbonated. The latter, be warned, is not the best mixer to use for spritzers because of the fragility of its bubbles.

 

Spa

First discovered by the ancient Romans, the source for Spa’s non-sparkling mineral water is located in Belgium’s Ardennes Valley. Spa was the first town to develop an international bottled water industry (in 1583, the water was exported to none less than King Henri II of France). In the process, the town inadvertently exported its name; since then, “spa” has been synonymous with most natural springs and health resorts. On the edge of the High Venn near Spa is the spring called Reine (the Queen’s Spring). Rain and melted snow falls on a moss area of La Fagne, a plateau 575 meters above sea level. It percolates down through layers of clay, slate, flint, sand and quartz where it finally surfaces at 440 meters above sea level.

Trinity

The source of Trinity is a place called Paradise, Idaho, located on the edge of the vast Idaho wilderness in the foothills of the Trinity Mountains. A source of exceptional purity, the Trinity springs flow through crystal-lined passageways over 2.2 miles below the planet’s surface within the massive granite Idaho Batholith. Emerging from this deep, protected, pristine source at a temperature of 138 degrees Fahrenheit, Trinity is pure enough to be bottled in its natural state without disinfectants. In keeping with the recognized traditions and wisdom of European spring stewardship.

Tynant

Springing from a source in Wales’ Cambrian Mountains, this carbon-filtered sparkling water first made a name for itself in London's high-end hotels in 1989. Today, the lightly carbonated beverage is more widely distributed and imported to the United States. Tynant is recognizable by its striking blue glass bottles, the hue that apothecary bottles were colored during the Victorian era.

Vittel

This still mineral water comes from three springs in the small town of Vittel, protected within a 5,000-acre forest in the Vosges Mountains in Northeastern France. Vittel comes from an immense underground aquifer where rock strata and sandstone charge the water with calcium, magnesium and sulphates. The spring surfaces at 11.1 degrees Celsius, and its waters are renowned for its stimulating effects on the kidneys, gall bladder and liver.

 

Volvic

Volvic is bottled exclusively at its unique source in France and available in more than 60 countries. The basin supplying the Volvic spring source is located in the Regional Park of the Old Auvergne Volcanoes, a volcanic region that has been dormant for 10,000 years. The name Volvic refers to the town as well as a type of gray volcanic rock. The Clairvic Spring was discovered in 1927. In 1965, the French Ministry of Health authorized the bottling of Volvic water. Volvic emerges year-round from its protected source at the constant temperature of 8.8 Celsius.

Voss

In response to bottles of water that lack style and are for the most part unsophisticated, two Norwegian entrepreneurs created Voss, a classier, designer-savvy tube of water from the crisp, frigid aquifers of their Nordic homeland. Shielded for thousands of years from pollutants by thick layers of rock and ice, Voss water is bottled in Southern Norway, “naturally unfiltered,” and it is served both still and sparkling. But its rugged purity is not Voss’ only selling point. The company’s designers painstakingly developed the bottle’s look and feel to reflect a brand that embodies both health and high fashion. Voss first became available mostly in upscale hotels and in health spas in Europe and in the United States. But the stage is set for much wider distribution in 2006 to gourmet food isles and retail stores on both continents.

This guide has been produced with the help of Arthur von Wiesenberger, author of four books on bottled water, a water master at the annual International Water Tasting Competition in Berkeley Springs, W. VA, and the founder of www.BottledWaterWeb.com, the definitive bottled water website and www.BottledWaterBoutique.com, the Internet’s first online water purveyor.

Blue Keld Waters

This luxury water brand from England comes from a spring in the Yorkshire Wolds, a region of low hills in the northeastern area of the country. The waters take many years to naturally filter through the chalk and limestone of the Yorkshire Wolds before they arrive at the Blue Keld Spring. The company produces Natural Water, Premium Water, Flavored Water, Blue Keld Ice, and Artesian Water. The company's Artesian Water is aimed at the hotel, restaurant and catering industries, and is bottled in a unique, tear-drop shaped vessel made from blue Venetian glass imported from Italy.

OGO Oxygenwater

Dubbed “The Breathing Water,” as it contains 35 times more oxygen than regular water, OGO comes from a natural spring in Tilburg, Netherlands and is instantly recognizable both by its taste and appearance. A patented oxygenation process takes place in The O-Company’s facility prior to bottling and creates a still water with a light balance. OGO Oxygenwater is sold in a unique and distinct round 33cl bottle. OGO is also available in sparkling form and in elderflower-and-lychee-flavored Flower Power.

Tasmanian Rainwater

The air in Tasmania, Australia has scientifically been proven to be the purest in the world, and it is from here that the pristine clouds shower the earth below with refreshing raindrops. Since 2006, one company has bottled the still water at a custom-designed catchment facility before it reached the ground, and has distributed it to locations worldwide. All-natural Tasmanian Rain, which contains only seventeen parts per million of dissolved solids, is available in 12- and 24-fluid ounce sizes and comes in a chic and recyclable glass bottle.






Some references obtained from www.finewaters.com

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(Updated: 05/11/09 KR)