Here is a long story short! As we have said before, we lived in Hawaii for ten years, we to this day still get water withdrawals. What that means is once or twice a month we get in the Mini and head for the coast. This weekend we ended up at one of our favorite places, Carmel. Actually we started in Carmel, went through Pacific Grove and ended up at the Wharf in Monterey. Honestly we usually go to Fisherman's Old Grotto...it is probably one of our favorites restaurants on the Wharf because of the "AWESOME" clam chowder. We decided we would like to sit out side. So we headed to Isabella's and sat outside on the second floor over looking the harbor. OK, now I will get to the Point.

We had an amazing dinner sitting outside in the cold under the heaters and watching the sun go down. I had the house special called Mama's delight or something like that. It was a spinach pasta with Halibut, Shrimp, and Scallops in a heavy white wine and butter sauce "..." Oh My God!

Jump a few days forward and KD and I are shopping and I said "do you remember the Seafood we had on the Wharf"? Do you think you could make something similar in a white sauce; KD said "yes, I can". Calories have won out over the years and this has just not been a dish we would cook at home. So living large we jumped right in and decided to create a delicious pasta dish. A few days later KD made this dish for dinner. I wanted to pair this with another wine we received from Andrea of Casa Torelli Importers.

The wine we chose for tonight was a 2007 Pinot Grigio '07. As KD cooked I went to the wine room and grabbed the Pinot Grigio. I removed the cork and poured KD and I a preview of what was to come. We began swirling, viewing and seeing what type of nose this wine had. We had nuisances of citrus fruit and minerals almost like a cold wet stone smell. This wine had good charter and body with color of light straw. Now for the taste..... a nice bright, clean and crisp citrus taste with a mellow bit of steel. A lot of today's Pinot Grigio's don't spend enough time soaking in the skins of the grape and end up tasting like straight steel tanks, not this wine!

Here comes the good part! It paired amazing with our "rich" handmade seafood pasta dish. In fact I would put what KD made against Isabella's restaurant any day....Oh My God Twice! This Pinot Grigio and our seafood pasta in a white wine sauce was to die for. This Pinot Grigio came alive when paired with our meal. We thought it was a (OK-Good) wine by itself. When paired with our meal its flavors really came alive.

We rate this wine (Good)

Here are our Ratings: / Pass / Fair / OK / Good / Great / Fantastic

Disclaimer: Just because we like or dislike a wine does not mean that you will have the same experience. Of course it is always worth a try, tell us what you think??

Aloha,