Learn enough about wine to know what I like yet not come off as some wine snob

I am definitely not an expert but have learned, through an ongoing process of trial and error, which types of wines I prefer and have even gotten better at food/wine pairings, thanks to winezap.com. I now deliberately buy a mixture of old favorites and new wines so that the learning process is continuous.

I know what types of wine I like: merlots, reds, ports. I just don’t know what labels I prefer. I drink more wine in restaurants than I do at home and usually just ask the server to recommend something.