What is it about wine that brings people out in a rash? And I don’t mean if you’ve knocked back a few too many Cab Savs. Lots of us are nervous about wine. Whether it’s fear of ordering the wrong type at a restaurant or concern that people will laugh at the bottle you bring to a party, wine can be confusing. But it’s also supposed to be fun; one of life’s great pleasures. Ernest Hemingway said that wine “offers a greater range for enjoyment and appreciation than, possibly, any other purely sensory thing which may be purchased.”

Now, Hemingway may have enjoyed his wine a little too much, but he also has a point. And being a wine appreciator on a modest budget rather than a full blown expert with deep pockets doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy the good stuff.

Refinery29 sat down with one of the most respected wine critics in the world, Jancis Robinson, author of the brilliant new book The 24-Hour Wine Expert, and asked her all the questions you were too afraid to ask about wine. If you want to know the best bottle to buy for under a tenner, or whether it is ever acceptable to drink wine from a box, then read on…

OK, Jancis. The question we all really want to know the answer to is: what’s a good bottle of wine for under £10 that is acceptable to take to a friend’s house?

If something’s not fashionable, it tends to not be overpriced. For white wine, Muscadet is an insider’s wine. It’s underpriced and it doesn’t have such a strong flavour as to put someone off. It’s made on the mouth of the Loire in northern France and it’s very versatile – you can drink it with or without food. The farmers there haven’t been very good at marketing themselves but it’s the sort of wine that would appeal to anybody.

For red, it’s probably a Beaujolais. It’s sort of the red wine equivalent of Muscadet; it’s been unfashionable, therefore it’s underpriced. It’s made by a whole load of little farmers so try and get one that’s not got a name of a big industrial on it but is called ‘Domaine de something', showing that it’s from an independent farm. Then it is likely to have a bit of artisan workmanship behind it.

What about if you’re just drinking at home alone? (Not that I’d ever do that...)

If you’re just buying for yourself and looking for value then I’m pretty convinced that the best value whites come from South Africa. The country is cooled by currents from the Antarctic making it quite fresh. Their most planted grape is Chenin Blanc. Good value Chenin Blanc is a ‘please-all’. You can certainly get a decent one for under £7.

The best value for reds is probably Chile because they make masses of red wine and they’re very competent. But try to avoid a supermarket own label. I always say go to an independent wine retailer as their quality is so much better than the average supermarket. There was a time when supermarkets were very good places to find value but they don’t care as much as they did about the quality. Go to an independent wine retailer and ask for their best value South African white or best value Chilean red and you’re likely to get something good. Or good value anyway.

I’m really exposing myself here but I will often buy whatever is half price in the supermarket. Sainsbury’s and Tesco always have some £10 bottles reduced to £5. What do you make of those?

They are rubbish! Absolute rubbish! They call them half price offers and by law they have to have offered it at full price for a certain length of time [before reducing] but they never, ever bought the wine with the intention of selling it at the full price. And they’ll make sure there’s a nice profit margin in there, even at half price, because they know that 95% of the wine will be sold at half price.

The supermarkets are moving away from this sort of promotion, I’m glad to hear, because the discounters like Aldi and Lidl haven’t pursued that policy. They’ve just said, ‘These are our wines and these are our prices; take it or leave it.’ And the big supermarkets have seen that people quite like that approach. The public doesn’t like being played with.

If I was going to someone’s parents' house, and they really know about wine, what do you recommend I take?

I’d honestly go for a really nice bottle of olive oil or balsamic vinegar. You can’t go wrong with that. It’s quite a common gift between wine professionals.

Do men and women generally approach wine differently?

In society, wine knowledge is perhaps slightly overvalued; you’re almost not allowed to admit to knowing nothing about it but that shouldn’t be the case. I do think that women are more fortunate as far as wine goes because society expects men to know about wine; wine is a sort of status symbol. If a man is having to choose wine in a restaurant then it’s a sort of nervous, ‘Am I choosing the right wine?’ whereas I feel women are allowed to choose what they feel like drinking. We can relax more and don’t have to worry about obeying the “rules”.

How important is it to match wine to your food? Should we abide by the red for meat/white for fish rule?

No, that doesn’t matter at all. It’s more about getting the weight of the wine matched to the weight of the food. If it’s quite a light, not very flavour-dense food then go for a lighter wine, whether that’s white or red. But if it’s something like a hearty stew then go for a full-bodied, rich red or white.