‘Afspraken’ met het andere geslacht maken alleen nog lieden van de “oude stempel’’. De rest heeft een ‘date’. En wie nog niet getrouwd is, noemt zich onder de vijftig geen vrijgezel maar ‘single’. En als een single een date heeft, eet of drinkt het duo doorgaans iets. Als die drank dan wijn moet zijn, maken bijvoorbeeld Britten zich daar drukker om dan wij. Wij zouden het best kunnen doen met een aardige polderwijn, bijvoorbeeld die van Marius van De Linie uit Made. Maar aan de Overkant maken ze zo’n keuze omzichtiger. Er zijn zelfs websites die daarover adviseren. Kies vooral geen voor de hand liggend spul. Anders maak je geen indruk. En ben ook niet te vrekkerig met je bestelling. Anders zou zo’n avondje wel eens vroeger kunnen aflopen dan je lief is. Lees hoe de Britse website AskMen je zo’n keuze laat inkleden.

“How do you select a first-date wine?

First thing: Take a deep breath. We have you covered. The following wines represent both the home runs and pitfalls that all of us have encountered. Take a look at the suggestions below and give yourself the best opportunity possible to allow your wine order to say something very specific about you. Let these suggestions highlight the best parts of who you are, thereby ensuring a second date -- and, hopefully, a very good end to the first one.

Mass-produced

Order a bottle of something that your date popped open with her girlfriends last weekend, and you may as well also get a low-cal entree, skip dessert and go home alone to watch Sex and the City. This is a trap that too many men still fall into: They’re struck weak with fear upon opening the wine list, and rather than take a chance on something unfamiliar or risk looking somehow weak by asking the sommelier for advice, they simply stick with the same mediocre juice lining retail shelves all over the country. Don’t be this guy. He is invariably lonely and drinks pretty poorly to boot. He consumes things like mass-produced pinot grigio, cheap over-oaked chardonnay -- wines whose producers spent more time and effort on the label art than they did on the juice itself.

What to order instead: To avoid this fate, buy a wine whose flavors you’ll recognize but whose grape variety or region of production you may not, like a juicy, peachy albarino from Rias Baixas in northwestern Spain, or a crisp, fennel-flecked Grenache blanc from France’s Roussillon.
Overripe Cabernet, Merlot or Shiraz
You know this guy as soon as you walk into the big-chain steakhouse: He’s loud, he refers to his dining companions as “bro” or “dude,” he’s wearing a beautiful suit that’s marred with a tie knot three inches too wide for his shirt collar, and he looks as if he goes tanning with The Situation on weekends. He’s also wildly predictable, ordering bottles with famous names that only on rare occasions are worth the money that restaurants charge. These first-date wines are typically expensive, super-ripe, high-octane reds whose fancy labels are much more appealing than the juice inside. As far as nailing down a specific grape variety that typically falls victim to this, forget it -- it’s too broad a category. Just know that they should be avoided, unless you like your wine to burn like whisky on the way down.

What to order instead: Ask the sommelier for a smaller production, well-balanced cabernet from Stags Leap District in the Napa Valley that doesn’t lean too heavily on alcohol.

Portuguese Reds

There’s a real allure to the brave, world-traveling-type guy -- an ineffable quality of mystery that women find both intriguing and irresistible. He’s seen the world and has taken full advantage of all that it has to offer. He has literally tasted life. And his worldliness and comfort with unfamiliarity manifest themselves at the table as he orders wines from all over the globe that his date has never heard of before. He may be unpredictable, but he’s exciting as a result. And when he sees something like a fruit-forward, earth-tinged red from Portugal’s Douro Valley or a great Tinta de Toro from Spain’s up-and-coming Toro region, he pounces on it.

What to also consider: I’ve recently tasted a number of great reds from southern France, notably from the Corbi