Upstairs at The Grill celebrates California Wine Month with rare, limited-edition wine flights #News

Victoria Hayes
5th September 2023

To honour California Wine Month, Chester’s iconic, independent steakhouse, Upstairs at The Grill, has prepared two new wine flights, available for a limited time only.

To celebrate California Wine Month, independent steakhouse, Upstairs at The Grill, will be offering a limited wine flight menu throughout the whole of September. The flights feature extremely rare, high-quality and low case production Californian wines, which have been specially selected by the restaurant’s in-house wine enthusiast, Mylo Southern.

Inspired by the legendary steakhouses of New York, Upstairs at The Grill combines the traditional with the contemporary to offer a truly unique dining experience. The restaurant offers an extensive wine selection, including some of Napa Valley’s most sought-after wines.

With world famous vineyards, California benefits from the nearby Pacific coastline and diverse microclimates to grow some of the most renowned grape varieties, such as Chardonnay, Zinfandel and Cabernet Sauvignon. As California Wine Month approaches, Upstairs at The Grill are celebrating some of the state’s best varieties.

On the menu in September are two exclusive wine flights; ‘The Oak Farm Flight’ (£40pp) and the ‘Celebrating California Flight’ (£135pp). All flights are in 100ml servings, but each wine is also available by the glass or the bottle.

Bartender preparing wine tasting set indoors, closeup

Oak Farm has become one of The Grill’s favourite vineyards in California. Running out of the region of Lodi in the Central Valley, where the Panella family has been making wine for the last three generations. The family produces 14 different grape varieties and many different styles of wine, four of which have been selected for this limited flight: Albarino, Fiano, Zinfandel and Sangiovese.

If opting for the Celebrating California Flight, you will be offered a stunning quartet of red wine, featuring four different award-winning wine makers who are cited as the ‘crème de la crème’ of Californian reds. Upstairs at the Grill is the only restaurant in Europe to stock these specific labels; their rarity due to their low case production. This includes: Kistler, Occidental, Zeitgeist & Moone-Tsai.

To complement each wine flight, the restaurant’s collection of signature steaks, such as the USDA Prime Delmonico and New York Strip, which are dry-aged on the bone in their specifically designed, state-of-the-art Himalayan salt maturation chamber, make a fantastic accompaniment. Priding itself on supporting seasonal, local produce and British farmers all-year round, The Grill also showcases some of the highest quality cuts of beef from the British Isles.

In a further ode to the best of Californian wines, the Upstairs at The Grill ‘Wine of the Month’ is the 2019 Pilcrow, Ghost Block, Cabernet Sauvignon which will be available by the glass and by the bottle (£40/150). Ghost Block Vineyard, owned and run by Sara and Jonah Beer, is a handcrafted wine with such a small production that it’s available on allocation only, making it the rarest wine on the list.

Jason Bligh, Director of Upstairs at The Grill, comments: “We like to think we not only specialise in great steaks and classic cocktails, but also in carrying some of the rarest Californian wines across Europe, maybe even the world. It therefore only seems fitting to spend California Wine Month celebrating our most exclusive labels through our limited-edition wine flights.”

“Our in-house wine enthusiast and Assistant Manager, Mylo Southern, has selected some of our most favoured grape varieties from the state and its major wine regions to highlight the very best of what Californian wines have to offer – not to be missed  at The Grill throughout September!”

To book a table, you can visit: https://upstairsatthegrill.co.uk/ or to enquire about the wine flights, please email [email protected].