Once you’ve figured out how the wine list is laid out, there are some tricks for divining which wines might be the best buys.

The typical American cuisine restaurant carries more California Chardonnay, Merlot, and Cabernet than anything else, because those are wines that sell without effort. That leaves less room for other categories, and those other wines take more effort to sell so the sommelier has to be pickier, especially when it comes to price/quality ratio.

Search for the quirks. A Slovakian wine is not going to fly out the door, so someone must have put it there because he or she liked it.

Is there a bizarrely grandiose Austrian wine selection? An out-of-proportion array of Australians? Is the Burgundy section bursting at the seams? You can bet these areas are where the wine manager’s heart lies, where he can’t control himself—thus the eyecatching length, and perhaps a lower markup.

The least expensive wine may be good, or it might simply be on the list to hit a “price point.” The most expensive wine, on the other hand, often bestows status more than anything. Typically, most people buy wines that fall in the middle price range of the list or just above. The sweet spot, however, is usually right under the median price. These are the wines that the sommelier needs to work harder to sell, since people don’t gravitate there naturally, and therefore they have to be good.

Scan the list for familiar names, and check whether the prices are higher than normal (on average, a restaurant bottle sells for about twice its retail price). If so, there may be no bargains here, and so it’s safer to play toward the bottom of the list.

If the list just offers White Zinfandel and big-name, bargain-priced reds and whites, order a margarita and save your wine drinking for another list. Life is just too short for bad wine, and it’s an insult to good food. Eventually, the restaurant might ask itself why everyone is drinking margaritas instead of Riesling and change their ways. But you’ll be gone by then. Too bad for them.

Steer clear of “cult wines,” those big-name, hard-to-find wines with prices inflated by high scores from wine critics. Unless you’re dining with a label hound, there’s always a better buy for the money.