At home you have time. In a restaurant you have four minutes, a list of eighty names, company that keeps talking and a host who passes by once. That is a different problem from choosing wine at your leisure, and it needs a different prompt.
What you want
Photo of the list, one bottle, and the question you put to the host. That last part matters most and is almost always skipped.
The prompt
This is the wine list of the restaurant I'm sitting in.
First name only the wines you can read with certainty, with the price
shown next to each. If you are unsure, leave it out.
We are eating [dishes] and want to spend around [amount] per bottle.
Pick one bottle. Say why, and which one is the fallback if it's finished.
Then give me one question I can ask the host to check whether this is a
good choice.That last line is the whole piece. A model does not know this list, does not know which bottle has been open for three months, and does not know the sommelier is proud of something unremarkable on page two. The host knows all of it. So the prompt produces not an answer but an opening.
Taken apart
Ask for a second choice. On restaurant lists there is a real chance the bottle you name is out of stock. Without a fallback you start over, list in hand, host waiting.
Have it read the prices too. Not because the model needs them, but because it is the only way to check it is reading the right column. Lists often have two, glass and bottle, and mixing those up is the most common failure.
End with a question, not with advice. This is the most useful pattern in anything I have written on this. A model that hands you a question for a human who does know is more useful than a model pretending to be that human.
Where it goes wrong
Three failures are predictable on a list, and you can spot all three without knowing the wines.
The wrong column. Many lists carry two, glass and bottle, sitting close together. A nine-euro bottle does not exist. Have the prices read out alongside the names and the slip shows up immediately.
A bottle that isn’t on the list. Handwritten or photocopied lists produce names the model finished for you. Check one name before you order, because otherwise the host will do it for you.
Vintages that no longer match. Lists are rarely reprinted when a new vintage arrives. The model reads the vintage off the page and reasons about it as if it were true, while something else is in the glass. That is exactly what the question to the host is for.
Ethics note
A phone held over a wine list is visible behaviour. To the host it looks like you are auditing their list, which is exactly what you are doing. Just say so. The conversation that follows is usually better than the recommendation was.
Watch what enters the frame as well. A wine list sometimes carries the restaurant’s name and the date, and a laminated one reflects the people at your table. Not a disaster, and more than you meant to share.
And the third, then I’ll stop: this is the place where using a model instead of a person is a waste. The sommelier is right there, knows what is drinking well, and enjoys saying so. Use the model to ask a better question, not to skip the conversation.
Take it
This is [the list] I'm standing in front of.
First name only what you can read with certainty, with the price next to it.
If you are unsure, leave it out.
We are [situation and budget]. Pick one, with a fallback if it's finished.
Then give me one question I can put to [the person who actually knows]
to check whether this is a good choice.A small exercise: ask that question even when you had already chosen. The answer costs nothing and is the fastest way to learn something about a list you will never see again.