Meet America’s Only Water Sommelier

Original article on OddityCentral.com – a blog on oddities and wacky news http://www.odditycentral.com/

A sommelier is usually defined as a wine expert who makes recommendations on what wine goes best with certain meals, at a restaurant. But Martin Riese doesn’t know a lot about wines. He is a professional water sommelier, the only one in the the United States.

German-born Riese has been fascinated with the different tastes of water since he was 4-years-old. His parents, who worked in the hospitality industry, would take him vacationing all over Europe, and the first thing he always did was try the tap water. To him, it tasted different everywhere he went, so he couldn’t understand why everyone always called it the same thing. Later, he would learn that he had been blessed with a very special palette that allows him to detect the subtle differences in the taste of different mineral waters. Luckily for him, there was actually a job that required just the kind of unique talent he had – water sommelier.