How can I drink good wine as cheaply as possible? I’m asking because the woman I’m seeing said she wants to learn more about wine.

Joe knows next to nothing about wine, but if I may, I’d like to recommend a restaurant that’s friendly to wine beginners and relatively easy on the wallet. If you live in the Tokyo metropolitan area, I recommend Termini, a casual Italian restaurant in Higashi-Ginza. It’s a small place, but there’s a wine cellar in the basement. Customers take a lantern downstairs and choose their own wine. No need to worry—each bottle has a simple description and its price clearly marked. Considering its location in Higashi-Ginza, the pricing is remarkably reasonable. Naturally, the wine cellar has no lighting, so choosing a bottle by lantern light should bring the two of you a little closer (or so I’d like to think). The owner is quite a character, but he’ll answer any questions about wine very patiently. I’m sure she’ll enjoy it too if she wants to learn more about wine.

I’m Saito, the columnist♪ She’s a lovely woman, isn’t she? I’ve also had beauty pageant contestants contact me because they wanted to learn about wine. These days, there are ways to draw a small amount of wine from a bottle without removing the special cork, and more places are even willing to serve DRC by the glass. Fine luxuries can become a dangerous rabbit hole—you can end up spending one or two million yen just to improve the experience by the tiniest bit. I think it’s best to find a wine bar where you can openly say you want something affordable and they’ll still do their best to accommodate you. I wouldn’t recommend study groups that simply rely on someone’s sommelier certification.