Speak up. “There’s no shame in telling a waiter, ‘I don’t know a lot about wine,’” says food critic Pascale Le Draoulec.
Strict rules about food pairings are out. “Chefs are more experimental these days, so you can be more experimental with wines,” says Ronnie Sanders, a co-owner
of Vine Street Imports,
a wine importer in Philadelphia. You don’t always need to have white wine with fish
or a red with meat.
Avoid an awkward money discussion. “On a wine list, graze a finger over the price and say, ‘I’m looking for something like that,’” says sommelier Alpana Singh of Everest Restaurant, in Chicago. “To guests, you seem to be choosing a particular wine, but to the waiter, you’re narrowing the price range."
Stay away from the second-cheapest wine. Restaurants may mark up their lowest-quality wine to sell more of it
at a higher profit. “They know customers are embarrassed to order the cheapest wine,” says John Brecher, author
of Wine for Every Day and Every Occasion (William Morrow, $25, www.amazon.com).
Don’t assume local is cheaper. Some of the most overpriced wines are from Long Island’s North Fork or California’s Napa Valley. Try Australia, Spain, New Zealand, or Chile, Sanders says.
