Kelsey Daniels poses inside Flights Wine Bar. She was recently recognized with the wine bar’s first Award of Excellence from Wine Spectator. (Courtesy Tina Paymaster)

Wine Spectator announced the winners of the 2025 restaurant awards, three of which reside in Central Oregon: Flights Wine Bar, Brickhouse Steakhouse in Bend and Brickhouse Steakhouse in Redmond.

The awards program selected 3,811 dining destinations from across all 50 U.S. states and more than 80 countries internationally, according to a press release.

“A wine list is a restaurant’s identity in print, and this year’s Wine Spectator Restaurant Award winners reflect both deep knowledge and a passion for discovery,” said Marvin R. Shanken, editor and publisher of Wine Spectator.

Awards are assigned on three levels, from the Award of Excellence to the Best of Award of Excellence and the Grand Award. The competition is heavily driven by the number of wine selections and inventory. Restaurants that received the first award in the three-tier program must offer at least 90 selections of wine, followed by 350 for the Best of Award and at least 1,000 selections for the Grand Award, of which 97 restaurants were selected worldwide.

The Brickhouse restaurants both received the Best of Award of Excellence, a distinction the Bend restaurant has received since 2011. Flights Wine Bar received its first Award of Excellence.

At the time applications were submitted, Bend’s Brickhouse had 540 wine selections with an inventory of 4,500 and was recognized for its strengths in bottles from Washington, California, Oregon and France, according to Wine Spectator’s website. Redmond’s Brickhouse had 370 selections with an inventory of 3,000, with strengths in selections from Washington, Oregon and California. Flights Wine Bar had 260 selections with an inventory of 1,250 and strengths in France and Italy.

Flights Wine Bar makes history

Kelsey Daniels, owner and sommelier of Flights Wine Bar, said she applied to be considered because she was curious how her business would stack up on a national and international level. Now, her restaurant represents Bend’s first wine bar and Central Oregon’s first woman-led restaurant to receive Wine Spectator’s Award of Excellence, she said.

“This award reflects years of dedication to not just wine and food, but to creating a place where people feel welcome and inspired and curious,” Daniels said.

Daniels’ wine bar operates on a rotating system, featuring five curated wine flights with one flight rotating weekly. On an annual basis, the wine bar cycles through a substantial number of wines, but Wine Spectator was only interested in judging the wine bar based on the wines it had on hand on the day it applied, Daniels said.

“As soon as one bottle runs out, something new takes its place,” she said. “Our wine list is a living, breathing creature — and a wild one at that.”

Daniels recently visited Austria and brought back with her an affinity for Austrian wines, available to drink by the bottle, glass or as part of a wine flight — a specialty of Flights Wine Bar. She also stocks wines from around the world, including from South Africa, New Zealand and the country of Georgia.

Wine served in a flight allows customers to explore wines from countries they’ve never tasted, without having to invest in the cost of a full bottle, Daniels said.

More coverage: Bend’s Bos Taurus receives first award from Wine Spectator in 2023 restaurant awards

A menu to match

Restaurants are required to submit their food menu along with wine listings, an area that Daniels said may have helped Flights Wine Bar snag an award.

“Most restaurants pair the wines with the food. We actually do it the reverse. We create our menu based on wines,” she said.

Upscale menu items like duck breast and teak fries are served next to approachable offerings like champagne and fried chicken night, a weekly event on Thursdays. A monthly women’s tasting flight event creates space for women to connect and a wine workshop dives into the educational topics of wine production.

Wine Spectator’s Restaurant Awards issue will be available July 15. Find a full list of winners online at winespectator.com/restaurants or on the magazine’s Restaurant Awards smartphone app, downloadable for iPhone and iPad users.