‘So what do you think the wine tastes of?’ is one of the one of the most frightening questions to be asked during an evening class in wine appreciation. Because not only is your ability to pronounce waffle being judged but also how well you’ve got the whole body language thing under control. Because bum shuffling and mumbling gets ‘nul points’ when you’re face-to-face with teacher. But what if all that could be avoided? It can if your wine class meets online through Twitter.

Twitter is a way for a bunch of people to converse with one another online. And if they have a shared interest even better. So wine enthusiasts can interact and type messages discussing what a wine tastes like and whether it matches certain foods – all without setting eyes on each other and from the comfort of the front room.

Which should reduce the pressure a bit if your last experience of learning was a draughty classroom and a chalk-chucking teacher.

So how do you go about organising a wine class on Twitter?

First you’ll need to create a Twitter account (just go to Twitter.com and fill in the online form) and convince several like-minded friends to do the same. Then encourage everyone to ‘follow’ each other (that’s Twitter language for reading messages from the people you chose) and announce with your first ‘tweet’ when the first tasting takes place.

Use your second 140-character tweet (time and messages are short on Twitter) to announce the particular wine to taste during the first ‘class’. Suggest a wine that’ll be easy to get – a well-known brand available from supermarkets and corner shops is a good choice.

And on the night of the tasting make sure all your tweets, and everyone else’s, contains a keyword preceded by the # symbol so that the #tasteclass tweets are tagged and don’t get lost among the rest of the Twitter traffic.

The following wines are readily available and make good choices for a Twitter tasting.

Then let me know how it goes via Twitter @huxelrebe.

PG Wine Tips

£3.99 and under

There are still some good bottles to be found that cost the same as a couple of National Lottery tickets.

Tesco French Red

£3.99

Soft cherry and blackcurrant flavours with a background of milk chocolate.

£5.99 and under

There are a few fruity, slurpable wines among the forgettable masses.

Spar Italian Soave

£4.99

Aroma and flavour of peach, pear, lime and almond. Quaffable and only 11.5% alcohol too.

Spar Italian Montepulciano d’Abruzzo 2009

£5.69

Hint of Marmite on the aroma and taste of blackberry and coffee. With a sweet edge.

Costs a bit more, but tastes great

Sometimes a bottle of wine tastes so fab it's still a bargain whatever it costs.

Casillero del Diablo Merlot Reserva 2010

£7.33 Asda Morrisons and Budgens

Smoky sloe aromas followed by flavours of milk chocolate and blackberry.

Tesco Finest Italian Barbera D’Asti Superiore 2007

£7.24

Do you get aromas of Fisherman’s Friend? What about flavours of cranberry?

This article has also appeared as Paula's Wines of the Week on MatureTimes.co.uk