Jumble of albums (tapes, actually) on the passenger seat of my car:

* Wire, Pink Flag

* Minor Threat, Complete Discography -- best U.S. punk band; beats a pitcher of iced coffee in the morning

* Pharcyde, Labcabincalifornia

* R.E.M., Murmur

* B-52s: The B-52s / Wild Planet -- actual product; a 2-for-1 thing from Warners

* Grotesque C-90 hodgepodge: (A) Feelies/Pavement/Sleater-Kinney/Meat Puppets b/w (B) Embarrassment/Aztec Camera/some ludicrous band/Berlin -- yes, Berlin. I wonder how Sleater-Kinney feel about being on the same tape with "The Metro."

* Kylie Minogue, Fever

Welcome to my world.

I'm pleased: the Williams-Sonoma catalog showed up in the mail yesterday, without my having to order it. Evidently my new dwelling's prior occupant (who was also a government lawyer) had an appreciation for soothingly sleek domesticity.

Also, today is Dining section day in the NY Times. Over morning coffee I perused with interest the wine panel's tasting of moderately-priced Burgundies from the Cote de Beaune. I know exactly where they're coming from when they write:

"We tried; heaven knows we tried. We at the Dining section's wine panel had been looking forward to this one: a tasting of moderately priced Burgundies — reds of course — from the Côte de Beaune, the southern part of the famous Côte d'Or, the heart of France's Burgundy district.

After an hour's worth of putting our noses to the glasses and later sampling, Ms. Lembeck summed up our feelings. "It was hard not to be frustrated," she said. "Of course there were many good ones, but there was also garbage." The number of bad bottles in the tasting almost had her feeling guilty. "You feel like you're damning the whole category," Ms. Lembeck said, adding that she did not wish to do that. "

Sigh. I've been there, guys. Three points to make:

1. The panel mostly tasted Beaune wines in the $22-$30 range. Knowing that, I could almost have predicted their results. I've come to the conclusion that you have to spend at least $35 to get a really good bottle of red Burgundy; it's best to accept this fact.

2. Notice that the panel appears to have avoided the most famous Beaune appellations, such as Pommard and Volnay, which are some of my favorite wines ever. And notice that all of the wines that they did like were from the well-regarded second-tier appellations of Aloxe-Corton and Savigny-les-Beaune. That fits my own experiences. I threw a wine tasting last year that starred a bottle of '97 Aloxe-Corton from Comte Senard; we all found it a really memorable wine. And when I was in Philadelphia last year on business, I shared an excellent bottle of '99 Savigny-les-Beaune with two friends at Le Bar Lyonnais, the bargain-priced (ha ha!) downstairs nook at Le Bec-Fin.

Good times, good times. But obviously not an everyday expenditure.

3. Accordingly, when I need a dose of Burgundiness and don't have $40, I forego the pinot noir grape entirely and just pick up some cru Beaujolais. I strongly recommend this course of action. For a mere $15 the other day I picked up the 2001 Georges Duboeuf Prestige Cuvee Moulin-a-Vent. Quite a buy: good round fruit, decent length, spice, and earthiness -- it even had an earthy nose, like a good red Burgundy. Soon as I have time I'm going to return to my (new) neighborhood wine shop and clean out their remaining bottles of the stuff. My wine rack is getting lonely.

- P., self-hating Bobo, prone to these occasional outbursts