Água e Vinho is a set of duets for recorder and guitar by two Australian musicians, the recorder player Rodney Waterman and the Melbourne guitarist Doug de Vries. It was released in 2000 on Carmo, the label of Egberto Gismonti, and the choice is fitting, since the duo was formed around his music. Six of the twenty-one pieces are by Gismonti, next to Brazilian choro, Catalan folk songs, Renaissance ricercars and the players' own compositions.
According to ECM Reviews, de Vries introduced Waterman to Gismonti through the album Alma, and the pair closed their first concert, in July 1995, with his Karatê. Most of the album was recorded by Robin Gray between November 1997 and March 1998, with four tracks added in 1999 by George Butrumlis. Alberto Ranellucci mastered it, and Dulce Bressane worked on the production and design for Carmo. Waterman uses a family of recorders, from soprano to a tenor voice flute, while de Vries plays mostly a seven-string guitar and, on one track, the cavaquinho.
The Gismonti pieces range from the fast Frevo, with an improvised middle section, to the grave, restrained title track. Two tunes by Hermeto Pascoal open the programme, and Jorge do Fusa by Garoto (Anibal Augusto Sardinha) brings in the choro tradition that the seven-string guitar comes from. Waterman wrote Song of Reconciliation in 1997, in response to the Australian government's refusal to apologise for the treatment of Aboriginal people. His Zana, for Ganassi alto recorder, honours the recorder player Zana Clarke, and Ade pairs soprano recorder with cavaquinho. Two ricercars by the Spanish Renaissance composer Diego Ortiz remind the listener how old the meeting of breath and plucked string is.
The record found admirers among specialist reviewers. In the US webzine Minor7th in 2001, Alan Fark wrote that Waterman "elevates recorder music to heavenly and stratospheric levels of artistry", with de Vries on equal footing. On ECM Reviews in 2020, Tyran Grillo singled out the Waterman originals and the Gismonti selections and praised the warmth of the Catalan songs. In May 2025 the two musicians marked the 25th anniversary of the album with a concert in Melbourne.
CD, catalogue number CARMO/14, released on 13 November 2000 by Carmo and distributed by ECM.
