Ophelia has been included in The Star Wine List’s White Star listings for the first time.
The list recognises venues which have interesting wine lists that have been reviewed and approved for inclusion. Following this first step, the Gosforth restaurant will be visited by one of the awarding body’s team or ambassadors with a view to possibly awarding Red Star status.
Star Wine List is independent and the decision to select a venue for either Red Star or a White Star status is down to the team and their ambassadors. Star Wine List does not charge venues to be listed and venues cannot pay to be listed. Anyone can recommend a venue to them for consideration, including restaurateurs and sommeliers.
The team and the ambassadors continually monitor and update their selections, and they add and remove venues throughout the course of the year.
Star Wine List is the guide to great wine-led bars and restaurants, covering 40 countries on all continents with more than 2,700 wine lists that users can check out on the app and website. The organisation also runs yearly awards in each of the countries in which it operates, The Star Wine List of the Year, which reward the top wine lists in specific categories and the work that has gone into creating them.
Ophelia general manager Matt Francombe said: “We’re really happy to achieve White Star status – it goes some way to recognising the work we’ve done in pulling together a really interesting wine programme. We’ve taken a great deal of care sourcing from among our favourite regional vineyards, predominantly from France, to deliver wines that marry perfectly with our French-inspired regional cuisine. We’ll continue to push and hope that in the fullness of time we can achieve further recognition for our wine list.”