PICTURE yourself on a first visit to a new restaurant. It could be French, Greek, Spanish, even American, specializing in the cuisine of any country with a wide-ranging wine industry.

You place your order, maybe asking a waiter to describe some dishes to help decide. Then you look at the wine list, dozens of choices all consistent with the restaurant’s ethnicity. Not one bottle seems familiar. What do you do?

A) Close your eyes, point randomly to a bottle and order it.

B) Throw up your hands and order a beer (assuming you recognize any of those choices).

C) Ask for advice from the sommelier or a server familiar with the list.

D) Rant about pretentious sommeliers who create lists of esoteric wines under the deluded notion that their mission is to educate customers. Dummies!