White Burgundy and Raw Bars, Done Right
Downtown Los Angeles · Los Angeles · Seafood · Visit Website ↗
Reviewed June 21, 2026
Wingman Metrics
The wine list at Water Grill arrives feeling serious — 400 to 600 bottles deep, clearly built with a point of view. That point of view is white wine, full stop. Burgundy and California Chardonnay dominate, and when you're looking at a tower of oysters and a bowl of Dungeness, that's exactly what you want.
White Burgundy and California Chardonnay anchor this list, with names like Domaine Leflaive Mâcon-Verzé and Kistler Les Noisetiers sitting alongside crowd-pleasers like Rombauer and Cakebread. Alsace gets a respectful nod — the Trimbach Clos Sainte Hune is one of the finest dry Rieslings on earth, and the fact that it's here says something about whoever built this list. Champagne shows up the way it should at a serious seafood house. Red wine exists on this list, but it's clearly not why you're here.
Twenty pours by the glass is a healthy number for a restaurant of this focus. We'd expect the Chardonnay-heavy selections to do the heavy lifting on the glass program, and at a downtown power-lunch destination that makes total sense. Rotation and freshness are the question marks — a sommelier on staff helps, but we'd ask when each bottle was opened before committing.
Domaine Leflaive Mâcon-Verzé — Unknown
Leflaive's village-level Mâcon is one of the best overachievers in white Burgundy. You're getting the house's winemaking DNA at a fraction of the Puligny price. At a restaurant where Kistler and Cakebread are the gravitational center, this one tends to get overlooked — and that's your opening.
Trimbach Riesling Clos Sainte Hune
Most tables at Water Grill will order Chardonnay on autopilot, and that's a shame when this bottle is on the list. Clos Sainte Hune is a single-vineyard grand cru-level Riesling from Alsace with the kind of precision and mineral tension that makes a plate of oysters taste like a revelation. It's underordered, almost certainly, and that's a missed opportunity every single night.
Rombauer Chardonnay Carneros
Rombauer is a perfectly fine wine that's become a restaurant markup machine. You're paying a significant premium for a label that's easy to find at retail, and the butter-and-vanilla profile, while crowd-pleasing, doesn't do the delicate seafood on your plate any favors. Pick the Leflaive or spend up to the Kistler — either direction beats this middle ground.
Trimbach Riesling Clos Sainte Hune + Oysters on the Half Shell
Clos Sainte Hune's razor-sharp acidity and saline mineral character are essentially built for raw oysters. The wine cuts through the brine, amplifies the ocean flavor, and leaves your palate completely clean. It's one of those pairings that makes both the wine and the food taste better than they do alone.
✔️ The Bottom Line
Water Grill is a reliable choice for serious wine with serious seafood — the list is deep enough to reward exploration, and the sommelier presence means you can actually ask for help. The markups sting, but this is Downtown LA and you knew that walking in.
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