Corking girls& guide to the world of wine.(Food & Wine)

MORE women are now buying wine than ever before, thanks to the convenience of supermarket off-licences, allowing us to purchase our wine along with the weekly shop.

However, many of us are afraid to try new varieties, preferring to stick to grapes and brands we know, which means that there are a lot of fabulous wines out there we might never even taste.

According to a recent survey by market research group NOP, this may be because we simply don&t know enough about wine language$.

The research found that a quarter of restaurant-goers admitted they always select the house red or white because they are simply too baffled by wine list gobbledegook to make an informed choice.

And shockingly, two thirds of people are too afraid of looking stupid to send back a bottle of wine they&re not happy with.

Descriptions such as oaked$, full-bodied$ and appellation$ may sound very fancy but, unless we understand what they mean, they make very little difference to our selection.

Oaked means that a wine has been fermented in oak barrels giving it an oaky flavour; full-bodied describes a wine which has weight on the tongue and a strong satisfying taste; and the appellation of a wine is a guarantee of its geographical origin (to claim that a wine is from a particular appellation, 85 per cent of the grapes used to make it must be grown in that region).

If you want to be able to make an educated choice (or, at least, pretend you know what you&re doing) read Susy Atkins& book Girls& Guide To Wine (published by Mitchell Beazley, priced pounds 4.99)

As well as teaching you the difference between a Chablis and a Shiraz, and explaining what your choice of wine says about your personality, it also gives advice about which wines go best with which foods (despite what we&ve been told for years, this doesn&t so much depend on the colour of the wine but on its richness and sweetness so you CAN enjoy the right bottle of white with steak, or red with fish).

The book is fun but informative (according to Susy, buying wine is like shopping for lipstick) and should supply you with enough basic knowledge to hold your own at the restaurant table or dinner party.

- With its hot sunny summers and cool wet winters, South Africa can boast near-perfect wine-producing conditions. Thanks to foreign investment following the end of apartheid in 1994, the country now offers some of the best wines in the world from its multitude of high-quality vineyards.

With one of the largest online selections of Cape wine from all the finest wine-growing regions, the South African Wines company offers UK wine-lovers the chance to buy cases of South African wine over the internet.

Choose from, among others, Chardonnay, Chenin Blanc, Merlot and Pinot Noir from Stellenbosch, Constantia, Franschoek and Durbanville.

A case (six bottles) of Inglewood Chardonnay 2003 (a balanced wine with tropical fruit flavours and hints of citrus) will set you back pounds 35.95; a case of Thandi Cabernet Sauvignon 2002 (a deep red coloured wine with blackcurrant and roasted coffee bean flavours from the first Fairtrade accredited estate) pounds 41.94.

Visit www. southafricawines. co. uk or email info@southafricawines. co. uk

- If you would like to serve a novel beer at your grown-up Hallowe&en party try Hobgolblin, strong and dark, made in the west Oxfordshire town of Witney. This is a deep amber-coloured ale with rich notes of dark caramel, malt and ripe fruit. From Tesco pounds 1.54 a bottle.