"Don't judge a book by its cover."

Many years ago I'd read that this idiom came from a time when books were often self published, and the more money one had the more extravagantly bound the book - with leather, with gilded edges - so that it would present the illusion that an expensive looking book might be a better book to read. I don't know if this is true or not, but I confess while capable of bypassing my prejudices, I am indeed a person who responds to packaging.

I'm attracted to design and to visual cues, much more so than I am capable of producing them. I will linger over a good design moment like a good painting, and quickly pass the ones that don't appeal to me. And if I weren't occasionally reminded of the erroneous nature of this, I'd have missed one unbelievably good wine experience.

I haven't eaten meat in a while so I decided to live it up a bit and have hamburgers for dinner. Then I figured since hamburgers might be the closest thing to a full-on red wine moment I get, why not really go for it and open up a bottle? One of my winos slipped this one to me in early winter with the comment, "It's a really good wine."

That man did not lie.

This was an amazing wine experience. This was one gorgeously pleasant wine.

Hated the label. If I walked past this in a store I'd have walked past this in the store. It's too pink or something. That is the ignorance that isn't bliss, just ignorant, and the loss would have been entirely mine.

The burger was pretty good, too. It's on ciabatta bread, there's watercress and lemon and mustard on it, sauteed onions and mushrooms with red pepper, and gorgonzola...frankly, not a horribly bad pairing. But the wine was a-m-a-z-i-n-g.