It’s odd that we don’t associate connoisseurship with the making of things, no matter how much skill may be involved — but rather with identifying, classifying and ultimately making judgments of quality about those things.
Connoisseurs of Old Master drawings aren’t expected to be artists themselves, yet their opinions about what are fine and authentic examples of the genre (and what are not) are highly sought after. It is essential to the function of the connoisseur to be able to detect and articulate shades of likeness and difference that escape the rest of us, simply because we haven’t expended the thousands of hours required to achieve their level of know-it-allness.
It’s also more than a little weird that, of all the many kinds of connoisseurship that rightly and even necessarily exist in this world, wine expertise should enjoy the kind of halo of respect it does. I can only guess that this is attributable to something inherent in the historic human experience with wine itself and the aura of mystery and divinity with which we’ve enrobed it, rather than to some inherent genius in the community of experts who, as a general rule, are no less annoying and no less frequently misguided than any other species of know-it-all.
How much do you need to know to enjoy wine? I would say just enough to satisfy your present thirst for information about it, whatever that is. If you enjoy a wine, then try finding the producer’s website and see what she has to say about her philosophy and technique. I’ll bet you’ll learn something worthwhile. Have the idea that it might be interesting to know the names of all ten cru villages of the Beaujolais and sample one wine from each? Do that, and you’ll already be wading into some geekish wine depths. Loiter at Bertrand Celce’s marvelous Wine Terroirs site. Buy and read a really good wine book.**
Make it a policy to never outrace your present appetite for wine knowledge and you’ll be in a perpetually good place. And if at some point you momentarily tire of it all and prefer instead to feast your eyes on some Old Master art, just remember: No wine has ever been, or will ever be, a Rembrandt.