When it comes to wine, the five most important words you can utter are, “Can I please try that?” No amount of wine reviews, scores, or buzz around a wine will tell you if you like it or not. The only way you’ll ever know if a wine is something you’ll like is to try it. The wine industry supports this notion and most places that sell wine regularly have tastings.

You don’t have to track down a wine store to start your exploration of wine. Wine is an extremely lucrative part of the restaurant business. It is always in the best interest of a restaurant to have you order wine with the meal. Restaurants make it as easy as possible for you to get wine with your meal, and one of the ways they do this is by offering wines by the glass. Typically, the wine by the glass list is much shorter than the wine by the bottle list, dramatically reducing the number of wines you have to sift through. Wines on the wines by the glass list are generally affordable and fairly affable wines. Restaurants need the wines on their by the glass list to sell before the bottle of wine goes bad, so they generally pick ones they think people will enjoy.  Are the wines on the by the glass menu going to be life changing? Probably not, but at this point we’re not going for life changing; we’re on a search for wines that we like.

Given the profitability and necessity for restaurants to sell through their wines by the glass, most restaurants will happily give you a taste of the wines on their by the glass list if you just ask them. This is a great opportunity to try something before you take the plunge and buy it. The thing to remember is that if you taste something and you don’t like it, you don’t have to (and should not) order it! This doesn’t mean that you should taste your way through a restaurant’s entire by the glass wine list; but you should be able to taste a couple of wines to decide which you like best.

In some restaurants, you can actually order a half glass of wine. On a recent trip to Las Vegas, I had lunch at Estiatorio Milos at The Cosmopolitan. All the wines on their by the glass list are offered both by the full and half glass. Even if a restaurant doesn’t explicitly state that you can order a half glass of wine, I’ve found that politely asking has almost always resulted in accommodating my request. At some restaurants, my curiosity to taste wine has been met with great enthusiasm and I’ve had almost a full tasting done at my table. There are a lot of people out there who love wine and will happily share their love when they find someone who appreciates it.

The key here is to be courteous and appreciative, and to pick your time. If you are eating dinner at the peak of a dinner rush, don’t try to taste three or four wines. If a waiter or waitress goes out of their way to accommodate you or goes above and beyond to support your exploration of wine, it’s extremely important that you show your appreciation when you tip.

Finding wine that you like may take time so don’t be discouraged if you don’t fall head over heels for the wines you taste. It’s through this process of tasting that you will find the wines you like as well as discover what you don’t like. Both are equally important things to discover.