White Beaune and 1970 vintage port

New Year's Eve has come upon us but there's time for one more post before Big Ben chimes the year out! This evening I'll be thinking of Paul who so kindly gave us the tour of the clock tower back in October, one of the highlights of 2013. The Torygraph has an interview with him today which is well worth a read.

I'm struggling to think of a theme for this post except that it's the second "white burg and port" report of the year as there was that rather interesting tasting at the Bakers' Hall earlier in the year.

The white burg we drank last night was a Beaune 1er cru Clos des Mouches 2006 from Yves Darviot. This was G's penultimate bottle and we drank it with some wild sea bass which I'd foraged from Selfridges food hall.

I adore white Beaune and this was no exception. It was a pleasing mid-pale gold colour and looked inviting. On the nose I found vanilla while G thought there was something floral going on, possibly heather honey. On the palate, it was dry, rich and full, but not blowsy. It was fully mature and in excellent condition. Possibly inspired by G's reference to honey, I detected a hint of beeswax, both in terms of texture and taste, but it wasn't unpleasant.

On a previous occasion, back in April 2010, we had a horizontal tasting and gave this a 9 while the 2005 received a 10. This time again we felt the 2006 scored 9 points and spent some time debating why this was. The best reason we could come up with was that it was lacking the narrow core of acidity that the best whites have - "the blade of Damascus" G said -  its backbone could have been firmer. Still, it was very pleasing and went down a treat, and it's sad that Yves has retired. I'll certainly be looking out for some white Beaune from Audiffred and Rateau at the Burgundy Portfolio en primeur tasting in January.

The vintage port was an old favourite, Smith Woodhouse 1970. We decanted this for lunch with friends on Sunday, but there was some left over so I had a cheeky glass last night and we'll be polishing it off tonight. It had flavours of prune and liquorice, and G thought there was a car tyre thing going on. This particular bottle was bottled in Oporto, whereas previously I've had it bottled in the UK - the famous bottle with the white splodge on, now a treasured part of my bottle collection.

Somehow this one seemed less developed than those were. If I'd been tasting it blind I doubt whether I'd have guessed it was as old as 1970. It's still a jolly nice drop.

In other news, I acquired a lovely fuzzy red notebook for Christmas, which I've decided to dedicate to wine notes instead of using scrappy little pieces of paper. A resolution for the new year is to make more detailed tasting notes in future rather than the "we drank this, it was great" that has been happening a lot lately.

Thanks for reading and I wish you a very happy 2014!