Patrick Matthews traces the story of Ty Nant, from a dowser's discovery in rural Wales to the world's best restaurant tables.
What's in a bottle? Success or failure, according to many gurus of the drinks industry. Coca Cola, Mateus Rosé, and Perrier are all defined by their classic outlines. The shape and colour of the glassware, together with the design and wording of the label, can determine a drink's popularity, or transform it from also-ran to runaway success.
One recent triumph is Ty Nant natural mineral water. Before its launch in 1989, cobalt blue glass wasn't used for drinks packaging - perhaps because of its association with poison bottles in old-fashioned chemists' shops. But blue is now the new green: Babycham, Blue Nun and Harvey's Bristol Cream are three old stalwarts among a host of drinks that now appear in this dashing tint. Ty Nant itself is exported to more than 30 countries and claims to be Britain's top bottled water, ranked by value of sales.
But Ty Nant is not the brainchild of a drinks multinational. In fact, its origins could hardly be more pastoral. Geoff and Gwenllian Lockwood dug the first well, launched the company and commissioned the bottle. And while the rest of us pay around £1.25 for 75 centilitres of the water, they enjoy it gratis in their farmhouse in west Wales - the 'house with the water', or, in Welsh, 'ty nant'.
In the mid-Seventies, the Lockwoods hired a dowser to restore a water supply to their stone farmhouse, which sits in a valley amid the hills of coastal Ceredigion in west Wales, surrounded by fields of sheep and vexed, like much of rural Wales, by low-flying raf trainer-jets. The dowser found abundant water and told the Lockwoods it was the best he'd ever tasted. Gwenllian assured me of the existence of this (now deceased) elemental figure - a character I'd otherwise be tempted to ascribe to a marketing man's imagination.
Richard Barber, a genial big-bike fan and Ty Nant's longest-serving employee, first heard about the water in the mid-Eighties. His account, which he admits may be apocryphal, centres around "something like a school bazaar... Geoff Lockwood put up a few bottles of Ty Nant water. Then people came to his house after trying the water, saying 'Can we have some more, or buy some?'''
The upshot was that Barber found himself helping to design and build a bottling plant in Lampeter. Tankers filled up at the farmhouse, then made the 15-mile trip to the small town, where the water was put into clear plastic bottles. Once his construction duties were over, Barber went on to marketing and distribution. "I was the van driver," he says. "I used to go out to generate sales from shops. It went well - they were interested that it was a local product."
A group of local businessmen picked up on this enthusiasm and backed the Lockwoods' project. They held an ambitious launch party at London's Savoy Hotel in 1989, and before long Ty Nant was gracing the tables of some of the capital's smartest restaurants. Nick Taylor, who joined in 1990 as production manager and is now general manager, attributes the breakthrough to the blue bottle in which Ty Nant first appeared on the national stage. Eleven years on, it hasn't changed much from the pre-production wooden model he keeps on his desk. The bottle, created by designer Robin Sheppard, was, Taylor says, years ahead of its time: a fluid, rounded form in winning contrast to the hard, angular look of the late Eighties.
Ty Nant was bought out in 1992 by its Italian distributor, Pietro Biscaldi Luigi Export-Import. Taylor's newly built office overlooks the Lockwoods' farmhouse, and two new wells help satisfy thirsty customers across five continents. A fence and a plantation of conifers separates the hi-tech bottling plant from the Lockwoods' land. I heard Geoff and Gwenllian wanted to put their foray into mineral water behind them and are now working in damp-proofing.
I say that the bottle's shape must be inspired by Perrier. Taylor says not. "Look at an old burgundy or an old champagne bottle," he explains. "This is a product that we always assumed was destined for the restaurant table." He picks up the bottle and starts miming a sommelier, filling a succession of glasses. The bottle performs a kind of spontaneous theatrical flourish. "This is a bottle that allows you to handle it easily - it's got a great point of balance.
A lot of people don't weigh up things like balance." But what about the water itself? Connoisseurs praise British mineral waters because they taste of... nothing much. This is in contrast with French - or the even funkier Russian - versions, which, as one industry insider puts it: 'are the sort of waters you have to chew'.
Continental spas began because volcanic rocks give rise to springs which reach the surface ready carbonated, or warm, or with high levels of dissolved minerals. But the British Isles lack these volcanic rocks and consumers here are unenthusiastic about the strong flavours they create. Instead we value water for its freedom from chlorine and agricultural chemicals - and some foreigners agree. Ty Nant's competitor, Highland Spring, quotes Pascal Martin, sommelier at the Paris restaurant L'Opéra, who categorises mineral waters with terms such as 'fat' or 'heavy'. His verdict on Highland Spring, which he likes, is that it "has no taste".
Taylor describes his own product similarly. "The whole thing about Ty Nant is that it's neutral," he says. This doesn't mean an absence of mineral content. Distilled water, for example, which has no calcium, tastes unpleasant. "Water has to have something, otherwise it's a dull, lifeless taste. Ours is just so clean - I may be biased, but to me it's the perfect water."
The same conclusion, in fact, as the Lockwoods' anonymous Welsh dowser reached a quarter of a century ago. But, having seen through the launch of the on-site bottling plant three years ago, Taylor is not about to make too much of his debt to this ancient craft. "We've spent tens of thousands of pounds on hydrological exploration," he erupts, albeit good-humouredly. "We didn't do a project like this on the basis of a bloke with a couple of sticks."