As usual, the answer depends on how much the wine costs. If you have to pay some concessionaire bandit $11 at a baseball game, absolutely not. But if you can find the wine in the plastic glass for $3 at a grocery store, and you’re not fussy about what it tastes like and you want the convenience, you could do worse.

More, after the jump:

The Zipz effort has 187 milliliters of wine, about one glass (one-quarter of a bottle). It’s a PET product, madw with the kind of plastic commonly used for bottled water containers.

The Zipz looks like a wine glass, if a little clunky. It’s sealed with wrapping around the rim and stem, a plastic top, and pullback foil over the wine. The idea behind Zipz is to sell wine in places where it’s impractical for bottles and glasses, like ball games, concerts, and the like. Or, consumers can buy it at retail and take it camping or on picnics.

In this, the Zipz was surprisingly easy to open, even when I did it the wrong way the first couple of times. Tear the wrapping at the strip, gently pry the top off, and pull back the foil. I only spilled a little wine once. Plus, it was easy to chill.

The problem is that the wine is not Fetzer’s best effort. Something like House Band, a similar concept, is better made. The Quartz White (sample, 12%) was the better of the two, an apple-ly, sweet and sour blend made with more than six grapes and that tasted of moscato, though there was more chardonnay than anything else. It’s a bit sweet, which helps to cover some of the bitterness from what could be unripe grapes.

The Crimson Red (sample, 13.5%) is a lot of what turns people off of red wine – tannic and bitter, despite a slight sweetness. Both glasses I tasted seemed oxidized, and I wonder if the PET handles heat (which is a cause of oxidation) as well as glass. Or maybe both were just stored badly.

The wine has fake oak, zinfandel and syrah (plus at least four other grapes), but the blend is not greater than the whole. Having said that, if I’m at the beach, grilling burgers, only drink red wine, and I’m not picky, it’s OK. Adding an ice cube won't hurt.

The logic behind the proposal by the federal National Transportation Safety Board is impeccable: Cut the legal drinking limit to about three glasses of wine in 90 minutes, and fewer people will drive drunk and so fewer people will die.

But logical doesn’t always mean sensible. More, after the jump:

This is not an endorsement of drunk driving or a rant against Big Government. There are plenty of other places on the Internet to find those. And I know the problem first-hand, living in Texas --one of the worst states in the country for drunk driving and where going the wrong way on high-speed highways after getting liquored up is particularly popular.

Rather, this is a look at whether lowering the legal drinking limit, as measured by blood alcohol levels, is the best way to solve the problem. Or, as noted by a spokeswoman for a restaurant trade association, is that “moving from 0.08 to 0.05 would criminalize perfectly responsible behavior.” There are four glass of wine in a bottle, which means that a 130-pound woman who had three glasses would be legally drunk under the proposed standard. A 190-pound man could drink only three glasses.

This assumes two things: First, that social drinkers are a serious part of the drunk driving problem, and second, that the only way to solve the social drinker problem is to criminalize social drinking.

The statistics can be interpreted either way. The government says people with a blood-alcohol level of 0.05 percent, the proposed limit, are about one-third more likely to be involved in a crash than those who have not been drinking. Those with a blood-alcohol level of 0.08 percent, the current limit, are 169 percent more likely.

On the other hand, more than two-thirds of drunk drivers involved in fatalities in 2010 had a blood-alcohol level of .15 or higher – hardly social drinkers, and a figure that has remained the same for about decade. And repeat drunk drivers are more likely to have higher blood-alcohol levels than those arrested only once. All of this seems to indicate that the nut to crack is not the social drinker, but the hard-core drunk.

The proposal also overlooks the role age plays in drunk driving. In 2010, drivers younger than 34 who were legally drunk accounted for almost two-thirds of fatal crashes. Those of us older than 44 made up only 11 percent of the the total. Would it not be more efficient to raise the drinking age from 21 to 25?

Finally, the safety board doesn’t give enough credit to the role education has played in cutting drunk driving deaths, which have declined by more than half in the past 20 years. When I was younger, no one thought about designated drivers or calling a cab for a friend who was drunk. My early-1970s driver’s ed class barely touched on the subject, and it was a badge of honor for young men in the Midwest to drive drunk. None of that is true today.

Perhaps the biggest argument against the new limits, though, comes from Mothers Against Drunk Driving, and that should speak volumes in any debate on the subject. It would rather see technical changes, like car Breathalyzer interlocks, and greater police powers when arresting drunks. Punishing social drinkers may not be worth the effort, especially in political capital.

Cartoon courtesy of Dear_Theophilus at OpenClipArt.org, using a Creative Commons license

Here’s a challenge to the California wine business, and especially those who think the Wine Curmudgeon is too hard on it. Use your incredible resources and talent to make a wine like this – a non-vintage red – instead of the buckets and buckets of boring, fruit-juice grocery stone plonk that you do make.

Because this French effort is not just a great cheap wine, but a great wine. As the guy at the store said to me when I bought it: “This may be the best bottle we have,” and his store has bottles that cost hundreds and thousands of dollars.

The point is not that California can’t make a wine as interesting and delicious as the Little James ($10, purchased, 13.5%). Regardless of anything else, California is probably the world’s pre-eminent wine region – the best weather, the best winemakers, the most money to spend. Rather, it’s that it has spent so much effort training consumers to buy wine with the name of the grape and a vintage on the label that it can’t conceive of anything else. If it doesn’t say Merlot 2012, no one knows what to do.

But they should. The Little James comes from a top-notch Rhone producer that mixes wine made with old grapes and wine made from current vintage fruit. The result is a $10 Hall of Fame wine: Classic Rhone barnyard aromas, red grenache fruit, some spiciness, and more tannin and acid than I expected -- a rough, though not unpleasant, peasant finish that speaks to a more traditional style of winemaking. A food wine for barbecue and burgers; highly recommended.

• Brushes for sale: There are three intriguing things about this post at Forbes about cleaning wine glasses. First, that Forbes would mess with it, given that it doesn’t seem like something their high-dollar readers would worry about. Don’t they have someone to clean their glasses for them? Second, that the best solution costs $4, using a baby bottle brush. This reinforces the Wine Curmudgeon’s theory that most wine accessories aren’t worth the money they cost and would be better spent on wine. Third, that the baby bottle brush company could have cared less about this new us, which points to the insignificance of the wine glass market in the greater scheme of things. Tip ‘o the Curmudgeon’s fedora to the great W.R. Tish, who sent this my way.

• Impressive numbers? The Wine Spectator analyzes the latest sales gains for winery to consumer shipping in the U.S. in such a breathless fashion that even I was impressed. And, given the legal restrictions, the almost $1.5 billion in sales is impressive (and that regional wine does more direct shipping than Washington and Oregon was pretty amazing). The catch, though, is that the $1.5 billion was just 4.4 percent of the total wine market. Until we see serious reform in three-tier, which hardly anyone is optimistic about happening anytime ever, direct shipping looks to remain a tiny, if lucrative, part of the wine business.

• Italian sales woes: Not in the rest of the world, where a leading Italian producer saw exports salvage its 2012 sales figures. Frescobaldi reported a 3 percent increase last year, despite a 5.1 percent decline in domestic sales. Once again, for everyone writing about wine, prices are a function of supply and demand. If demand decreases, as it has in western Europe over the past two years thanks to the euro crisis, then there must be a matching decrease in supply to raise prices.

A couple of months ago, I wrote about what I thought was the dumbest thing ever written about the wine business: That chardonnay was declining in popularity because more Hispanics were drinking wine.

Turns out I was the dumb one, because a study released last month was even sillier – that the Internet and big retailers would eventually put the local wine store out of business. Where do people get these things? And who is goofy enough to pay them to write this stuff? More, after the jump:

And, as Reuters quoted VINEXPO Chief Executive Robert Beynat: "We will probably see corner stores disappear eventually.”

Nothing like hedging your bets, is there?

The study strikes me as written to reinforce conventional wisdom – first, of the omniscience and omnipotence of the Internet, and, second, that China will usher in a golden age where everyone in the wine business will get rich without having to work very hard. The latter may eventually be true, given the 1.3 billion Chinese. But it’s worth noting that today, the Chinese market, in terms of volume, is less than half the size of the U.S. market. And 40 percent of us don’t drink.

It’s the first statement, though, that makes me really wonder what the study’s authors were thinking. It’s not that the Internet isn’t all powerful; just ask anyone who owned a book or video store. Rather, that Internet retail wine sales are illegal in most of the U.S. (constitutionally prohibited, in fact). So how will the Internet eventually replace small retailers in the U.S.? Equally as bizarre: How will big retailers, who aren’t allowed to sell in key states like New York thanks to the three-tier system, replace small retailers?

The study was done by the Wine Intelligence consultancy, which is usually better than this. In fact, there’s a more nuanced look at the study at thedrinksbusiness.com, which leads me to believe that Beynat and VINEXPO, in order to grab headlines, got ahead of themselves. Which apparently worked, since they got lots of cyber-ink in China. That U.S. consumers drink more wine than anyone else in the world was probably too first decade of the 21st century for them.

The Wine Curmudgeon has never been able to figure out Italian sparkling wine, all those Proseccos and Astis, despite Herculean efforts from people like the Italian Wine Guy. And if those wines baffle me, you can imagine what I think of the newish sparkling moscatos, many of which are made with all the finesse of a 7-Eleven Slurpee.

Not all sparkling wine needs to taste like Champagne (long live cava!), but I appreciate the Champagne structure and style – firm, tight bubbles; a clean, long taste; and the balance between acidity and fruit.

That’s what makes the Castaldi ($21, sample, 12.5%) different from other Italian sparkling wines. It’s made with a couple of Champagne grapes (mostly chardonnay) and made using the Champagne method. The Franciacorta region, near the Swiss border, is the only area in the country where this is done.

And, as with well-made sparkling wine from Spain and elsewhere, it uses those techniques to make a terroir-driven wine. The Castaldi tastes like it comes from Italy  -- crisp, small bubbles and a bit of clean apple fruit that’s not a Champagne knockoff that oozes of caramel. Excellently done and much better than I expected.

This is Mother’s Day wine, whether for brunch on Sunday or to toast Mom for another year well done.

More about Mother's Day wine:
• Mother's Day wine 2013
• Mother's Day wine 2012
• Mother's Day wine 2011
• Wine of the week: Domaine du Tariquet Classic 2011
• Wine of the week: Casteller Brut Rose NV

Yes, you can buy Mom wine for Mother's Day. Why not? Doesn’t Mom like wine? Don’t you think she should have some? Keep the wine gift-giving guidelines in mind -- "Don't buy someone wine that you think they should like; buy them what they will like," as well as these suggestions:

• Regional wine: Mom can drink local, too. St. James Pioneer Red ($11, sample, 12%) is great, cheap regional wine from Missouri. Lots of black fruit, but also earthiness and acidity. Limited availability, but there’s likely a local wine near you that will do the same thing.

• Cune Rioja Monopole Blanco ($12, purchased, 13%). The Cune Rioja Blanco is a Hall of Fame candidate, and this Spanish white is even more impressive. Terrific food wine, especially if you're tired of chardonnay, with white fruit, some white pepper and a pleasant, if shortish, finish.

• Tormaresca Chardonnay 2011 ($12, sample, 12.5%). Italian white is amazingly consistent from vintage to vintage, with lemon and apple fruit, a hint of sweetness and a sort of stony finish. Clean and well made, without any of the excess of chardonnay -- fake oak, overripe fruit -- at this price.

• Trivento Amado Sur 2011 ($14, sample, 14%). Well-done malbec blend from Argentina, with lots of sweet red fruit, a little black pepper and even a bit of citrus in the middle. Balanced, but firmly in the new world style.

More about Mother's Day wine:
• Mother's Day wine 2012
• Mother's Day wine 2011
• Wine of the week: Domaine du Tariquet Classic 2011
• Wine of the week: Casteller Brut Rose NV