In 1889 Rudyard Kipling wrote a poem “East is east, and west is west –  and never the twain shall meet.” He may have been writing about Detroit, because there is a definite delineation and a mindset between the two, at least in popular folklore; of course, my Bride and I have proven this theory wrong, without having to involve the Capulets and Montagues.   And while I am off on a tangent on geography, before I even get started writing about wine; both the group Journey and the Library of Congress are wrong, as there is no South Detroit, unless you are referring to the Detroit River or Windsor, Ontario, Canada which is the only place the Canada is south of the American border, if you ever want to get people riled up about border rhetoric.

I mention all of this, because I tagged along with my Bride to celebrate a birthday of one of her classmates way back when schools were not politicized and the “Three R’s” were still being taught.  We were all meeting at Fishbone’s Restaurant, and it gave me a chance to brush off, one of my old matchbooks, which I still think was the best advertising medium for restaurants, plus a cool keepsake.   We were all having different versions of seafood, which was good as it is Lent and it keeps my Bride safe and happy.  My Bride had their Pasta Orleans which was Fettuccine sautéed with shrimp, crab meat, crawfish, mushrooms, fresh tomatoes and scallions in a Pesto Cream Sauce with Parmesan cheese.  I had the Crawfish Etouffee a “smothered” stew of crawfish tail meat, onions and peppers served with rice.  I can’t say that we had anything quite like them in New Orleans, but it had the concept and we were there for the fun and friendship.

I was surprised that we were the only ones drinking wine and I saw a wine that I had not had from a winery that I knew.  They had a bottle of Donati Family Vineyards “Sisters Forever” Un-oaked Chardonnay Central Coast 2021.  Well, I am used to more attentive wine service and the waiter unscrewed the cap and started to pour and I stopped him, and said that is not the wine, as I am used to seeing their wine with their logo.  He took it back to the bar area and returned and showed me the winery name on the back label.  I was fine, it is just that one gets used to a certain look from a winery and they toss you a curve ball. The Donati family started arriving in the Paicines region of the Central Coast in 1998, when they purchased the land that would become the family estate and vineyard.  Since then, they have planted the vineyards and built a state-of-the-art winery.  Paicines is the southernmost AVA in the San Benito County and in the 1980’s and 1990’s the area was associated with the production of bulk wines, but a few wineries are attempting to correct that image.  To this day, much of the fruit is grown and then sent to wineries in other parts of California.  It is still home to the five-hundred-acre Vista Verde Vineyard that was previously owned by Almaden Vineyards, before the company was sold and split up in the 1980’s.  The sandy soils of gravel and limestone have forced the vines to develop deep root systems, because of the good drainage and has strengthened the vines.  The wine is ninety-five percent Chardonnay, three percent Viognier and two percent Albarino.  Fermentation and Aging were all done in Stainless Steel to maintain the integrity of the fruit.  It was a pretty soft golden color wine that offered notes of tropical fruits and white florals.  On the palate stone fruit and lemon zest, balanced, fresh and clean; a nice simple wine for seafood.