Legends at Domaine du Markus
I’ve been to a lot of great dinners over the years. Some were extravagant, some were historic, some were just plain fun. This one has to rank at or near the very top — not because it was planned to be legendary, but because it became legendary almost by accident.
The caliber of the wines, the quality of the cooking, and how well the pairings actually worked pushed this into rare territory. And the best part is that none of it felt like a show-off. It was the right group, the right energy, and our familiar Domaine-du-Chevsky potluck format — where everyone brings something personal to the table. The only difference this time was the setting: not my kitchen, but Markus’ place, with a large, professionally equipped kitchen and his serious culinary chops, which more than lived up to the room.
Markus hosted, but everyone brought their A-game.
Champagne
We started with Waris‑Larmandier “Particules Crayeuses” Grand Cru, disgorged in 2018 — and in magnum, which already tells you the intent.
This is 100% Chardonnay from Avize, all about chalk, tension, and precision. Waris-Larmandier has quietly become one of the most serious grower Champagne houses in the Côte des Blancs, farming biodynamically and letting terroir do the talking.
It came with Ferran Adrià–inspired tempura pistachios (with the addition of pine nuts), a gruyère gougère, and an oyster — salt, crunch, fat, and brine in perfect balance. The Champagne was chalky, focused, and energetic, and it did exactly what great Champagne should do at the start of a long night: reset the palate and quietly say pay attention.
A classic opening.
A Swedish Curveball
Before moving into the heart of the menu, Markus threw us a curveball, surprising us with a Swedish white poured blind: Thora Vingård Reserve 2022, made not far from his summer home in southern Sweden. In the glass it showed an unexpectedly expressive aromatic profile — lean, with a fruity, almost exotic note that briefly suggested lychee or Muscat (even Torrontés crossed my mind), balanced by bright lime, crisp acidity, and a lightly herbal edge. That combination of aromatic lift and structure pushed my initial guesses toward Germany or Austria rather than anywhere Nordic.
Sweden isn’t exactly a reference point for fine wine, but a small, serious scene has been quietly taking shape there, largely built around cold-hardy varieties like Solaris. Thora is one of the producers pushing that quality conversation forward, and this bottle reflected care and intent.
Still, it wasn’t a wine that demanded extended focus. We talked about it for a minute, learned something, and moved on.
Crab
Dan’s crab dish was excellent — really thoughtfully constructed. Fresh crab dressed with minced apple, tarragon leaves, oil infused with tarragon and coriander, Meyer lemon, and home-pickled mustard seeds. Bright, aromatic, and layered without being busy.
With it, William Fèvre Chablis Premier Cru Montée de Tonnerre 2019, again in magnum.
Montée de Tonnerre is one of Chablis’ great sites, and William Fèvre is a long-established benchmark producer. That said, 2019 is a ripe, muscular vintage, and for me the wine registered a bit hefty. More broadly, while I respect Fèvre for their consistency and cleanliness, the wines have never quite had the magic of Raveneau or Dauvissat, or the nuance and character of some other Chablis producers.
Uni Pasta
Harumi’s uni pasta was one of the highlights of the night.
She pre-ordered a full tray of Hokkaido uni. Neutral oil infused gently with a few cloves of garlic and a single chili, then minced white onion, a splash of the Chablis, and a couple pieces of uni sautéed just enough to form the base. Al dente spaghetti went in next, and finally the rest of the uni folded in off the heat with a couple of tablespoons of heavy cream. Small portions, a few shreds of nori, and one whole piece of uni on top.
Two whites were poured.
Domaine des Comtes Lafon Meursault “Clos de la Barre” 2004 was one of the pairings of the night for me, and part of that has to do with what Meursault represents in the world of Chardonnay.
Meursault is often the most immediately seductive of the great white Burgundy villages. Compared to Puligny-Montrachet’s strictness and Chassagne-Montrachet’s floral, spicy elegance, Meursault leans rounder and more generous — showing a natural sweetness of fruit, a kiss of oak, and that unmistakable hazelnut-and-butter depth when it’s done well. At its best, it’s opulent without being heavy, comforting without being loose.
This is also the original reference point many early Napa Valley Chardonnays aspired to. Before the era of overt new oak, aggressive malolactic signatures, and popcorn-butter excess, the model was wines like Lafon: layered, savory, age-worthy Chardonnay that gained complexity and texture over time rather than trying to impress on release. Somewhere along the way that inspiration got amplified — and then caricatured — but bottles like this are a reminder of what the benchmark actually was.
Domaine des Comtes Lafon was founded in 1894, but its modern reputation was forged under Dominique Lafon, who began estate bottling in the 1980s and helped redefine Meursault as a source of profound, age-worthy Chardonnay. Today, Lafon stands as one of Burgundy’s reference estates, known for balance, texture, and longevity rather than flash. While Clos de la Barre is technically a village classified vineyard (lieu-dit), it’s farmed and vinified with the same seriousness as the estate’s top wines. At nearly 22 years old, the 2004 was fully mature: round, nutty, gently buttery, with just a hint of age-appropriate oxidation.
There’s also a grounding perspective here. Lafon’s top cuvées — Perrières, Genevrières, Montrachet — now command prices deep into four figures. And yet this “simple” village Meursault went the distance and absolutely nailed the pairing. With the uni pasta, the wine’s breadth and savory depth locked onto the dish’s richness and umami in a way that felt heavenly.
Domaine Jean‑Louis Chave Hermitage Blanc 1990 was fascinating in a completely different way. This bottle came as a gift to Lisa from one of the old-time, dear customers of Vin Vino Wine — our Cheers-style neighborhood shop on California Avenue where many of us first crossed paths, and which Lisa now co-owns.
In the glass, the wine had moved into a deep golden hue, opening with aromas of beeswax, dried flowers, honey, almonds, and dried hay. The fruit felt secondary but still present — ripe apricot giving way to fragrant pear through the mid-palate, with hints of orange peel and preserved lemon. The texture was rich and almost oily, coating the mouth, yet balanced by enough acidity to carry its substantial weight effortlessly across the palate.
Despite its indisputably big body, the wine remained light on its feet, finishing long, soft, and almost trance-like, with notes of Asian pear and gentle savory tones. It was remarkable to experience a 35-year-old white with this kind of intensity and presence. I admired it enormously, even if, for me, the Lafon ultimately connected more directly with the uni.
In fact, when Lisa mentioned that the loyal customer who gifted her this bottle insisted that Chave Hermitage Blanc is “undrinkable” until it’s at least 30 years old, I understood what she meant. Domaine Jean-Louis Chave is one of the most revered names in the Rhône, with a family lineage in Hermitage stretching back centuries and a reputation for making white wines that are almost designed for long maturation. The estate’s Hermitage Blanc — a blend typically dominated by Marsanne with a splash of Roussanne — is an inherently age-worthy style, built on richness, texture, and acidity that’s uncommon in most white wines. Professional reviews of the 1990 vintage bear this out: even contemporary scores from critics noted its depth, power, and capacity to evolve over time, and collectors generally agree that this is a wine that needs patience before it fully blossoms.
Lentils, Focaccia, and Screaming Eagle
Markus then served Hubert Keller’s lentil salad, finished with clarified tomato water. He explained that the jellied tomato water was made using a freeze-thaw technique that naturally concentrates flavor: homegrown tomatoes were crushed, strained through fine cheesecloth, frozen solid, then allowed to thaw slowly. The first liquid to emerge is the most flavor-dense, as freezing pushes sugars, acids, and aromatics out of the ice crystals and into the remaining liquid. By collecting only the first half of the melt and discarding the rest, Markus captured a crystal-clear, intensely tomato-scented essence without any reduction or heaviness. Set into a delicate gel, it added brightness and precision, quietly lifting the entire dish. He noted that the tomato essence was set with platinum-grade gelatin sourced in Japan and seasoned with traditional balsamic vinegar purchased directly from a producer in Modena in 1995.
The salad was shaped inside a ring of pickled carrot, topped with chopped celery and jellied tomato water, with cucumber border — refreshing, precise, and complex.
Alongside it was Rose Levy Beranbaum’s focaccia — an astonishing 115% hydration, enriched with two full heads of baked garlic. Crispy on the outside, impossibly soft inside, and deeply aromatic. Honestly mind-boggling.
Up to that point, the evening had been quietly excellent. This is where it crossed into something else, when Markus casually opened Screaming Eagle Cabernet Sauvignon 1996 ...
Screaming Eagle: the bottle, the myth, and the question everyone asks
My first time tasting it — everyone around the table took a moment to comprehend the rarity that was being presented in front of them...
If you’re not deep in wine nerdery, Screaming Eagle is the original Napa cult Cabernet. The winery was founded in 1986 when Jean Phillips, a local real-estate agent, bought a small vineyard in Oakville that had been planted to a mix of varieties. After years selling most of the fruit to other producers, Phillips decided to make her own wine, hiring Heidi Barrett — already a rising talent in Napa — to help craft the first commercial release from just a few barrels of Cabernet Sauvignon.
When the 1992 vintage finally hit the market in 1995, it became a sensation. Influential critic Robert Parker awarded it 99 points, and that single review helped catapult Screaming Eagle from obscurity to instant cult status.
Because of incredibly limited production — often 400–700 cases or fewer per year — Screaming Eagle didn’t just earn critical reverence; it became a symbol of scarcity and desirability. Today, getting on the waiting list can take years, and even then distribution is extremely limited. Secondary-market prices for older vintages routinely sit in the multiple thousands of dollars per bottle, with direct releases long sold out before most collectors ever see them.
In 2006, Phillips sold the estate to investors including Stan Kroenke and Charles Banks, with Kroenke becoming sole owner a few years later. Under new stewardship, the winery has maintained its tiny production and exclusive image, adding to its mystique rather than diminishing it.
The 1996 Screaming Eagle Cabernet Sauvignon comes from a Napa Valley vintage known for structure, freshness, and long-term aging potential rather than immediate opulence. Wines from 1996 were often firm and backward in their youth, but widely expected to reward patience. For Screaming Eagle specifically, the vintage has long been considered one of the estate’s stronger early releases, earning a 98-point score from Robert Parker and 96 points from Wine Spectator — a combination of critical acclaim and ageworthiness that helps explain why bottles like this remain so coveted decades later.
Which brings us to the obvious question: is it really “worth” $3K+?
Here’s my honest take after tasting it: the wine was really good — cashmere-smooth, understated for Napa, juicy but serious, not loud, not jammy, not over-extracted. It didn’t taste like a caricature. It tasted like a beautifully made mature Cabernet from a great place, in a great spot. In the glass, it absolutely delivered quality.
But “worth” depends on what you mean. If you mean “is it 6x better than a $500 bottle,” that’s not how wine works at the top end. What you’re paying for is a mix of real quality, extreme scarcity, uniqueness in the context of Napa, and the cultural weight of the label. Screaming Eagle is a wine that has become a currency as much as a beverage, and the market price reflects that.
I loved this tasting note from Lisa's husband, Ken, a professional sommelier: "Screaming Eagle: pure class. Having never tasted a SE before, it absolutely defied expectations, because I ignorantly lumped the wine into a category of saturated, viscous wines that maybe were only just then becoming fashionable in the mid-late nineties. This was the opposite: structured, complex, plenty of energy left to sustain this for years to come but I have to guess that Markus pulled the cork at a perfect time, though the apex of this wine could be a 7-10 year window. Quite possibly the best 1990s Cali Cab I've ever tasted."
And honestly, the funniest part of the night was the context: Markus used to be on the list back in the early days — when bottles were something like $50 — and “whipping it out” wasn’t a flex, it was almost… normal. In this group, in this potluck format, with this level of cooking and attention, it didn’t feel absurd. It felt like, if you’re ever going to open a bottle like this, this is exactly the moment and the table for it.
Ibérico Pork and Two Riojas
For the main, I brought Campo Grande ibérico pork, arguably the best pork in the world, referred to as the "wagyu of pork" — two cuts, pluma and abanico, with a side of Santa Maria pinquito beans in a smoky chili sauce and simple wok-seared greens — just Heirloom Farms braising mix, blasted over very high heat. Campo Grande sources 100% Ibérico pork from Spain, importing cuts rarely seen outside traditional Iberian butchery.
I seasoned them with salt and pepper a couple of days ahead, lightly smoked them at 180°F just for aroma, air-dried them in the fridge, and finished them with a hard sear on Markus’ grill.
The pluma — Spanish for “feather” — is a relatively slender, triangular loin cut taken from just above the shoulder and toward the front of the pig. It sits between the shoulder and the loin and is prized for being both tender and richly flavored. Because it’s leaner than some of the deeper shoulder cuts but still well-marbled, it shines with quick, high-heat cooking like we did on the grill, giving you a juice-rich, tender slice that plays beautifully with structured wines like Rioja.
The abanico comes from the area near the ribs and shoulder as well, but it has a slightly different muscle profile and fat distribution. In Iberian butchery it’s often grouped with cuts like ribs and collar, and it’s known for its richer fat content and intense flavor. It’s somewhat akin to what in traditional pork butchery would be referred to as skirt or rib muscle meat — a piece that benefits from a quick sear that crisps the exterior while keeping interior fats melting and succulent.
The thinner abanico was a head-turner. The thicker pluma I cooked rare, and it melted in your mouth. A lot of people commented on how steak-like the pork was, but with that unmistakable, slightly sweet and rich ibérico flavor.
Two aged Riojas were poured.
Two aged Riojas came out with the ibérico pork, and it immediately felt like the right moment for the region — not modern, not glossy, but wines that understand time, air, and food.
Rioja, at its best, has one of the great aging records in the wine world. Traditional examples can rival — and in some cases outlast — Bordeaux, not through sheer concentration but through resilience and balance. Long élevage, often in American oak, early oxygen exposure, and a culture built around late release effectively season these wines for maturity. The spice, savory notes, and gentle rusticity become structural elements, which is why older Rioja so often feels composed rather than tired. These are wines made with the expectation that decades will pass.
The two bottles we opened illustrated that beautifully.
The first was 1970 Bodegas Montecillo “Viña Monty”, from one of Rioja’s historic houses. Founded in 1870 in Fuenmayor, Montecillo is emblematic of the traditional Rioja model — deep cellars, patience, and wines built to be opened long after they’re made. Viña Monty represented the estate’s top tier at the time, based on Tempranillo and aged extensively in oak and bottle.
At more than fifty years old, the wine was inevitably advanced. Some at the table felt it leaned toward maderized. I found it silky and expressive, oxidative in a way that felt earned — dried fruit, old wood, spice, and a calm confidence that only very old Rioja can deliver when it holds together. This is always the gamble with wines of this age, but also the appeal. When it works, it doesn’t taste “old” so much as resolved.
Alongside it we poured 1994 Coto de Imaz Reserva from El Coto de Rioja, and the contrast was fascinating. El Coto, founded in 1970, grew into one of Rioja’s major players, but Imaz has always been their more serious, ageworthy line, sourced largely from Rioja Alta and built for long development. Reserva classification in Rioja still implies significant aging before release, and 1994 is widely regarded as one of the region’s truly great modern vintages.
That pedigree showed clearly in the glass. The wine was in excellent shape, with more structure, more intact fruit, and a firmer backbone than the ’70. Where the Montecillo spoke in whispers and tertiary tones, the Imaz still had a voice — tobacco, dried cherry, spice, and acidity keeping everything lifted and alive.
Together, the two wines framed the pork beautifully. Ibérico has that unique sweet-savory depth — almost jamón-like — with a texture that invites wines with umami, spice, and restraint. The older wine echoed the richness and earthiness; the ’94 cut through with structure and freshness. More than anything, the pairing sparked exactly the kind of conversation you want at a table like this — not about scores or labels, but about age, evolution, preference, and what you personally look for in a mature wine.
The Happy Ending
Dessert was crème brûlée, paired with Château d’Yquem 1975.
The wine was perfectly integrated. Oak and vanilla fully absorbed, sweetness and acidity in harmony. The best Yquem I’ve ever had. With crème brûlée, it was almost unfair how good it was.
Château d’Yquem isn’t just another dessert wine — it’s widely regarded as the greatest sweet wine in the world. It holds a unique place in Bordeaux history as the only estate in Sauternes classified as Premier Cru Supérieur in the official 1855 Bordeaux classification, a rank above all other Sauternes and Barsac producers.
Located in Sauternes on the Garonne’s Graves plateau, Yquem’s vineyards are planted primarily to Sémillon (~75 %) and Sauvignon Blanc (~25 %), chosen for their ability to concentrate under botrytis (“noble rot”). Noble rot is fickle — and that unpredictability is part of why Yquem only makes wine in years it deems worthy; in some vintages the crop is declassified because quality isn’t up to standard.
Because of this history, meticulous selection, and the extraordinary difficulty of making great sweet Bordeaux, Yquem has become one of the highest-priced wines in the world. Today, older bottles can trade in the $7K+ range at auction or on the secondary market.
1975 is a fascinating vintage in Sauternes. Not universally hailed at release, it’s a year that favored structure, acidity, and longevity over immediate richness. At Yquem, bottles like this have quietly proven how wrong early skepticism can be. With age, the 1975 has become celebrated for its balance rather than sheer power: less overtly hedonistic than some great Yquem years, but deeply composed and remarkably complete.
That showed clearly here. At nearly 50 years old, the wine felt fully integrated — the oak long absorbed, the sweetness and acidity in perfect equilibrium. What stood out wasn’t opulence so much as harmony, the kind that only comes from decades of patient evolution. This wasn’t a wine trying to impress; it simply was.
The provenance made it even more meaningful. The bottle came from Lisa’s late father’s cellar, inherited after his passing — a quiet tribute, and a reminder of why great wines are meant to be cellared, remembered, and eventually shared. With crème brûlée, it was one of those rare moments where dessert wine doesn’t just accompany the dish — it completes the evening.
And, as if crème brûlée and ’75 Yquem weren’t enough, Marcus kept going. There were “Sarah Bernhardt” chocolate cookies — an almond meringue base, buttercream filling, topped with Michel Cluizel 70% chocolate. Rich but precise, more pâtisserie than cookie.
And finally, "plain" meringues — generously salted and flavored with licorice. Marcus mentioned he added the licorice almost as an experiment, because Nordic men, for reasons no one can quite explain, tend to love licorice. They were addictive, especially with a glass of 75 d'Yquem still in hand.
A Final Thought
I didn’t expect this dinner to become legendary — but it did. The wines were special, the cooking was exceptional, and the pairings genuinely worked. And if you’re going to open bottles like these, this is exactly the group and setup you want: great hospitality, real camaraderie, and zero show-off energy.
A big part of why the night worked as well as it did was Markus — his generosity as a host, his deep technical curiosity, and a way of cooking that’s serious without ever feeling pretentious.
One of my favorite parts of the night was watching the chefs cook and learning from them — seeing how Dan thought through the crab, how Harumi handled the uni, how Markus composed the lentils and up-leveled that focaccia. That’s why I love this "chef's potluck" format. Everyone brings something personal, and everyone learns something.
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