Are you a rational person, guided by thoughtful intellect rather than impulsive heart? Ha! As brain science explains it today, our conscious mind controls our actions about as much as a little kid in the back seat with an orange plastic Fisher-Price steering wheel controls the car. In reality, first your subconscious makes a choice ("I want him!") and then your conscious brain justifies it ("So what if he pureed and ate his first three wives? It'll be different with me!")

The greatest human fear is change. So when our subconscious rebels at doing something differently, our prefrontal lobes scramble to invent reasons that the change would have been a disaster.

That's why you see so much irrational resistance to developments in wine. Wine might be stuffy, but at least we can count on it to be stuffy. So when confronted with the very logical and overdue transition from Stone Age corks to more practical screw caps, we react as if Grandma had up and joined a Las Vegas burlesque show.

When England's Sainsbury supermarket chain recently announced the introduction of plastic wine bottles, Simon Berry, chairman of the 300- year-old wine merchant Berry Brothers & Rudd, said: "I want to taste it first. Frankly, I'm rather skeptical."

Of what? Plastic? Did he not see The Graduate? Has he never dropped a bottle on the sidewalk or tried to hump a half- case up to a sixth-floor walkup? Is he blind to the environmental benefits of lighter, thinner containers? Nah, he's just human.

Still, if that put him in future shock, Mr. Berry had better keep the smelling salts handy lest he encounter the onslaught of decent wine in cans and juice boxes with bendy straws attached. Or the new Kellogg's-inspired variety packs, offering two mini-bottles each of chardonnay, cabernet and merlot.

Suppose he were handed a single- serving, foil-sealed glass from Tulipa, parent of the Trencherman brand?

If he wandered into New York's upscale Restaurant Daniel and ordered Dtour-brand Côtes-du-Rhône or Macon-Village, he'd be horrified to see it arrive in a cardboard, tube- shaped box.

Invented 50 years ago as a disposable package for battery acid, the bag-in- box makes an excellent wine container. It contracts as the volume of wine decreases, keeping harmful air from entering. Convenient and long- lasting, it also helps daily drinkers control their wine consumption. But it's a far cry from the cobwebbed bottle of yesteryear.

What would Mr. Berry make of Pocket Shots, single servings of liquor in flexible, mini, bottle-shaped pouches? True, "wine" is not yet among the flavors offered, but no doubt it will be. Among other attributes, the company emphasizes the product's "stuffability," especially pertinent now that airport security has begun questioning everything from the gel in the sole of a running shoe to the "wonder" of a padded bra.

Such inquiries might soon be pointless, however, since a group of Dutch students, led by the aptly named Harm van Elderen, invented, as their senior project, an instant powdered cocktail called Booze2Go. Besides the Jell-O-like convenience, it seems that non-liquid booze dodges alcohol taxes and may be legally sold to under-18- year-olds in the Netherlands.

Weird, yes, but try to embrace the change. After all, the bottle itself is only a few hun- dred years old. In fact, the only container for the true purist would be the grape skin itself.

Recommended

Sparkling/cans

• Sofia Blanc de Blancs (U.S.) $20/four-pack

• Floot Sparkling (Sicilia) $14/four-pack

Tetra Pak (juice box-style)

• Three Thieves Bandit Pinot Grigio $10/four-pack 250 ml

3-liter boxes

Red

• Casarsa 2004 Pinot Grigio/ Pinot Blanc (Italy) $10

• Wine Cube Pinot Grigio (U.S.) $16

• Wine Cube Chardonnay (U.S.) $16

• Killer Juice Chardonnay (U.S.) $18

• Black Box Chardonnay (U.S.) $18

White

• Banrock Station Shiraz (Australia) $16

• Wine Cube Shiraz (Australia) $16

• Delicato Merlot (U.S.) $18

• Chateau des Alouettes Syrah/Grenache (France) $20

• Chateau de Pena "Cuvee de Pena" Vin de Pays d'Oc (France) $22

Jester@corkjester.com

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