A Church of the Open Road Report
about family, food and bigger things…
The restaurant is called Scopa (http://www.scopahealdsburg.com/). Tucked into a narrow space across from Healdsburg’s
town square, the venue seats about thirty inside and, through the window that
opens onto the street, another eight at a common table on the sidewalk
patio. Intimate. Italian. Perfect
for the evening. Our dinner was in
celebration of the 24th anniversary of Candi’s 39th
birthday. Attending would be our
wine-making daughter, Jessica, a young professional who knows her way around this
wine-centric town and its wine-centric wine lists.
After some small talk with the waitperson whom she’d known
through various encounters in the industry, she settled upon a Piedmont Gio
Dominico Negro Arneis for the salad course to be followed by a “big” 2012
Aglianico from friends Ryan and Megan’s Ryme Cellars (https://rymecellars.com/). Both bottles would arrive at the same
time with the red decanted in order to breathe, volatilize and do other stuff a
country boy like me lacks sufficient sophistication to fully understand. The red would accompany a rib eye which
was ordered not rare or medium, but “perfect.” And it would be enough for three.
About halfway into salad, a group of thirty-something gents
hailing from Dallas, we were to discover, sidled into that outdoor table just
though our open window. As
Californians, we’re supposedly not ‘spozed to think much o’ Texans, now are we?
Cultural differences? Conservatives versus liberals? They’d brung a couple of magnums of
something red purchased on the square.
Overheard were questions about which white wine from the list that might
precede their repast.
“Try this,” Jessica said as she handed the half-full remains
of the Gio Dominico through the opening.
“Really.”
After a bit of Dallas Cowboys / San Francisco 49er ribbing,
the Texans learned, thanks to the waitperson, our daughter’s roots in
viticulture and our celebration with three became, for a time, a celebration
with ten. They were visiting the
area intent upon checking out some of the area’s 400 wineries and, as a result
of our cordial chitchat, at noon the next day, they’d be visiting Jessica’s
Passalacqua by-appointment-only winery. (https://passalacquawinery.com)
Dinner came.
Salted, peppered, seared, barely transitioning from red to pink on the
inside, and accompanied by crisply roasted Yukon Golds, the rib eye was, indeed,
perfect. (“Bet they can’t find
steak this good where they come
from,” I said just loud enough to elicit chuckles from the guys out the
window.) Ryan and Megan’s
Aglianico paired perfectly, and to top it off, a mysterious man-about-town,
sitting deep in the recesses of the restaurant’s narrow footprint divined that
this was somebody’s birthday and provided a molten chocolate soufflé which
proved to be dessert. Again,
perfect.
Dinner out in small town America – where everybody knows
everybody else, or soon will.
Concurrently, a couple of hours
south, in San Jose, protesters engaged in a violent confrontation at a rally
for a rather polarizing political figure.
Made the front page. A yuge
unflattering image, to say the least.
Sad.
Counterproductive.
Unnecessary. Behavior that
makes ‘Murica look doltish.
Better, might I opine, had those factions sat down and
shared a delicate Arneis or a big Aglianico with something chocolate and, I
don’t know, chitchatted…
© 2016
Church of the Open Road Press
Sadly, it was reported recently that Scopa will be closing so that the owners may focus their attention on Scopa's sister restaurant. http://www.pressdemocrat.com/lifestyle/6610178-181/scopa-closing-in-healdsburg?artslide=0
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