Step 1/Preferences: Ask your date his or her preference before you place the order. Never pick the cheapest or the most expensive wine; go for something in between.

Step 2/The Wines: I often like to start out with some Prosecco. It’s youthful, fresh and bubbly character is perfect match for conversation and appetizer, and its residual sugar makes it user-friendly; you really can’t go wrong. White wines offer lots of options for you and your date. For a fuller, low acid, creamy wine, look to California and Australia for some Chardonnay and Viognier. If you’re in the mood for an aromatic, expressive, lean wine with sassy acidiy and a natural affinity for food, head to France’s Loire Valley’s Sauvignon Blanc wines or to Germany for their dry Riesling. It’s expensive, but Burgundy’s take on Chardonnay is sexy, seductive, and elegant. Try Friulano, Ribolla Gialla and Pinot Grigio from Italy for whites that fall somewhere in the middle of the spectrum. More expansive than whites are reds, and if you’re date favors wines from the ruby end of the spectrum, you might choose a full, warm and viscous, oak scented wine from California, Australia, or Spain. It’s tough to go wrong with Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Syrah or Pinot Noir. Out of these varietals, Pinot Noir would be the friendliest because of its gorgeous fruit, elegant stature and polished mouth feel. It’s definitely a great date wine, and it’s always a smart way to gauge the tastes of your partne,  because you can always hop up to a Merlot, a Cabernet, or Syrah—or dial it down with a Gamay from Beaujolais.

Spain’s Tempranillo, Grenache, Graciano and Mourvedre are full-bodied wines with higher alcohol and bolder fruit. The Provence and the Languedoc Roussillon region of south France give hearty, full wines with great value. Elegant reds require you to head to the Old World of France and Italy. Generally lighter in body, and higher in acidity and earthiness, these wines are great to pair with food. Italy’s Barbera and Dolcetto will satisfy your tastes for tart, berry fruit, a medium body and a low level of tannin, while the Cabernet Franc grape from the Loire Valley offers earthy fruit and fresh acidity. For optimal pairing with pasta, you don’t have to look any further than a nice, lean Chianti; its typical Sangiovese bite and dusty tannins make pasta sing.

Step 3/Confidence: No matter what you do, try to look confident when ordering wine, even if you are clueless. If lost, you can simply ask the waiter to choose a wine that would go nicely with your meal—there is no shame in asking for help. Above all, remember that drinking wine will help you learn and help you choose. Whether the date goes splendidly well or tanks epically well, you can always count on the wine to teach you something new and tasty.

I value originality, almost above anything else. That’s not to say that I only go for something different. Sometimes a vanilla ice cream cone is exactly what a hot July afternoon calls for. My favorite writer happens to be Ernest Hemingway, whose prose style is considered simple and, his unadorned, quick sentences show that they were written by a trained journalist. Sometimes all I will eat for dinner is a bowl of arugula with lemon vinaigrette. And most Sundays I will wear jeans and a white t-shirt, nearly the simplest of outfits. But, I find originality to be very refreshing—in people, in food, in literature, and in wine lists.

Eric Asimov’s April 1^st The Pour posting “On Generic Wine Lists” came at an appropriate time for me to reflect on an experience I had this past weekend. I went for a glass of wine Friday night with a friend near Columbia University, and I was met with a list of wines by the glass that was marred by being the quintessence of saltine. The list looked a little like this:

Cheap $8

Good $12

Expensive $18

When the waitress came over to take our order, I asked for a little further information. She told me she thought the cheap was Merlot, the good was Malbec, and the expensive was Sangiovese, or something along those lines. I hoped she could clear up the varietals for me, as well as perhaps vintage and even country of origin. I told her I needed a few minutes.

At first, I had been somewhat intrigued by this wine list design. How unusual! How different! I had never seen this anywhere before! But the more I thought about it, the more I had no idea what I wanted. When presented with a wine list with six different Chardonnays by the glass, I often feel completely torn. But this was far worse because they were offering me only three unidentified beverages. I felt I was being forced to make an uninformed choice.

Composing a restaurant’s menu is difficult, so is making a wine list. There are so many choices, so many customers, so many palates, so many restaurants, and so many of them fail. When restaurants make their lists, they have to consider so many questions: Who will the audience be? What price range can we offer wines in? How large do we want the list to be? What is the concept or theme? All things considered, the wine list needs to be at the very least informative, and if it isn’t, the staff should be. Otherwise, the patrons end up feeling like me last Saturday night, and I don’t think that’s a good thing.

In the wake of this last experience on the Upper West Side, I’m wondering about what’s valuable in wine lists. Is it better to go off the beaten path and try to do something wildly creative? Or is it better to play it safe and run the risk of being saltine?