Wine Guides for the Rest of Us

Is it just me, or does everyone and his brother purport to provide unpretentious, every-day-average-joe wine info via blog, podcast, newsletter, or other hip media method? My question is, with all the "just for the average guy" wine sites out there, just who exactly is publishing the tradtional snob-laden, inpenetrable stuff that everyone is so on board to rail against?

Robert Parker seems to have pioneered the concept, to great personal benefit as we all know, and I suppose the nemeses that are the terriorists of France will be held up as the "traditional" set. But given that the French wine drinking of the masses seems to be dissolving, and given that French wine buys in the international market are dropping as well, does the influence of the French snob tradition still carry enough weight to be considered a mold?

These days, there are web sites and talk shows that love to use the tag lines that garnered Parker so much success -- they're all about the rest of us. Well thank the gods for that. I'd hate to be adrift in a sea of swirling snobs who refused me access to high quality and enjoyable wine.

What's ironic though, is that the rest of us are as judgemental as ever, quick to roll the eyes at an uneducated guessor. We just wear scrappier clothes (read: jeans and tshirts) while doing it.

There's a wicked little voice in me that wants to create a wine site dedicated to the high end, traditionalist, first-growth only crowd, or their counterparts, the any-Napa-cab-under-$80-must-be-swill set, just to buck the mold. A wine guide for the them, you know.