The summer is over, and you are ready to re-visit your dining room. It’s time to throw a dinner party. The food’s all set, so now you must choose the wines. If you are basing your wine selection on the movie hit Sideways, at least you won’t wind up with Merlot. But you may miss the stunning choices of wine available to you in Fairfield wine shops under the careful eye of their knowledgeable owners.

We decided to stop in two Fairfield wine emporiums to help with sorting through the rows upon rows of bottles that have the infuriating characteristic of not revealing their secret until they’re opened. It’s rather like not knowing someone till you marry them, but this is an entertainment story, so we’ll leave that thought right there.

We asked the proprietors—who admit to sampling their share of the selections available, and who wouldn’t?—to recommend some wines for special occasions. We asked them to pick a moderate and a slightly more expensive selection for each type of wine that could support a gathering of friends on a crisp fall evening.

The idea was to name a solid but interesting group of wines that could reasonably be given to your wine snob co-worker, but at the same time delight your high school buddy who thinks Zinfandel is a suburb of Hartford.

We started with Champagne, an elixir the Queen Mother recommended as the only drink you could have at any time during the day and, we suspect, she did. (Hers was Tattinger Comtes de Champagne Blanc de Blancs, we seem to recall. Of course, she also woke every morning to a lady-in-waiting delivering a free-range boiled Buff Orpington egg in response to a tinkle of a Fabergé bell.)

Champagne has the advantage of keeping your guests from finding the bourbon too soon, and it is light enough to give a lift to hors d’oeuvres. Besides, it is festive and fun. No one will complain about being handed a flute of Champagne. (Always get “brut” and, for Pete’s sake, get a few flutes from IKEA. If you’re still dragging out those flat glasses from the 1950s, make sure Jayne Mansfield or Myrna Loy is coming.)

Next, as you sit down to dinner, a white is traditional for the fish course (even if there’s not a fish in sight, and it is a nice way to ease into the meal). Those who want to move immediately to red should be allowed to do so, and those who love the white should be topped off frequently. As the wine flows, the noise level will rise and the party will get into full swing.