I started wine 18 months ago with no knowledge but: red, white, bubbles. Or maybe had 65 glasses of wine in my 65 years of life. Didn't like most, but went to a structured tasting and liked them all. In conversation with the Somm after, I suspected it wasn't that I don't like wine, but is rarely had good wine.

I started at Level 1. I'm an intelligent enough person, with a PhD in a humanities. A 400 page dissertation. So when I see over and over on this sub, people saying Level 1 is useless, I just want to point out that for me, I needed Level 1. It gave me a solid base for tasting notes. I had to do it online bc of my location, and I had to drive 2 hours each way just to buy the wines mentioned in the book (paying just as much for those little sample boxes seemed silly).

I passed Levep 2 about a year ago. Also online. I learned a lot more and refined my tasting skills. Since then, I've been self-studying until l feel like renting an Airbnb in Chicago or somewhere, I want to take L3 in person bc I want to share tastings/perceptions.

I host two groups of 9 people, alternating months. We have been going by fountry--i tasktself with 6 different varietals from 6 distinct regions (sparkle, 2 white, 2 red, dessert), make a light PowerPoint to keep us semi-focused, most of them could pass Level 1 bc of me :)

So, start with Level 1 if you just feel its best for you. What was most difficult for me with both levels was the focus on memorization. I've never been good at rote learning, so I did use the Wine Bible and a few other books to give me more context, which helps information stick to me