One might expect the head sommelier of one of Wales’ most acclaimed restaurants to be stern – perhaps a disciple of the Parisian school, armed with a crystal decanter and a withering frown. But at Fernery restaurant, cradled within The Grove at Narberth’s 26 lush acres of Pembrokeshire wildflower meadows, you’ll find Cathryn Bell: bright-eyed, emotionally fluent, and fizzing with curiosity. Her presence is more poem than protocol, more generosity than gatekeeping. And yet beneath the warmth is a story of sharp pivot points, long miles, and deep thinking…
‘I can’t save the world,’ she says early in our conversation, ‘but I can create genuine moments of conviviality, sharing, connection and happiness – and that’s the best thing I want to do.’
Bell’s route into wine didn’t begin with cellars or certifications, but on the northern tip of Zanzibar. ‘I had started working in responsible tourism in Zanzibar,’ she recalls. ‘Part of my work was to translate hospitality training for the local workforce, which involved alcohol in the context of food and dining. I was managing a little guest house and so found myself in the position of looking after the alcohol needs of guests.’
She hadn’t planned a career in wine – or in restaurants at all – but the shift was profound. ‘Until this point, I had been a civilian to both hospitality and wine, let alone be in a position to train or deliver it. But suddenly, I was in it – and thus began my learning curve in wine.’ Discovering that there was such a thing as being a sommelier – a livelihood centred around revelling in the wonder and pleasure of wine, food and conviviality – felt like another universe opening up. ‘For a split second, the jump felt hedonistic, but I realised very quickly it was a far more honest transaction. In both careers, the basic values are the same – making people happy, alleviating life in the moments I can.’
From the Indian Ocean to the shores of Lough Corrib, Bell’s path took her to Ashford Castle in the west of Ireland, where chandeliers glint over heavy-lidded Bordeaux. ‘I have never taken for granted the fact that I got to start my career in wine in a very privileged position. From the get-go, I was working with a historical cellar and with guests wealthy enough to drink it.’
One such guest left her with three-quarters of a bottle of Solaia 2007 as a tip – ‘which I took home in an empty Evian bottle.’ Her first encounter with Raveneau ended in a hail of yellow wax shards: ‘I hacked away at it tableside until the guest, blinking in the shower, graciously took it off me and opened it himself.’
Tannic Tides
It was also here that Bell began to understand wine’s darker undercurrents. ‘I learnt about the psychological warfare that comes with wine: how it’s entangled in barbed threads of intimidation, self-depreciation and aspirations of class and status.’ She saw guests apologise for ordering the house wine, while others rifled through the list like it owed them money. ‘Having come into the career completely green, completely ignorant, free of the shame and demons around wine that people seemed to have, meant I didn’t have any of my own issues to compound into the mix. I was just happy to be there, enjoying a work based around magic and deliciousness instead of the grim reality of human suffering.’
Ireland’s hospitality culture helped her flourish. ‘Of all the possible places for a fledgling sommelier to hatch, I count my lucky stars every day that I hatched in Ireland – those people raised me.’
Within three years, she’d become Head Sommelier of a Michelin-starred restaurant in Dublin. The leap was immense – and made possible by mentorship. ‘The restaurant hired a consultant in the way of the amazing Julie Dupouy to work alongside me as my mentor to help me learn the ropes. Julie had not long won the bronze medal in the Sommelier World Championships in Mendoza and I was very star-struck and petrified. But she was so kind and humble that she made me feel safe in my learner status and emboldened me to lean into the qualities that were my strengths.’
From there, she moved to Aimsir – the soon-to-be-legendary restaurant which won two stars within four months of opening. ‘Opening Aimsir felt like riding a very tangible wave of creativity, pride, courage and ambition, fuelled literally by the flames of everyone in the industry around us. It’s where I really found myself as a sommelier. It cemented my approach – being brave, being curious, that risk can be rewarded with creativity and learning.’
When the pandemic hit, Bell stepped away from restaurants. ‘I felt a huge responsibility to all the small wine suppliers that I worked with, who were cut off from their customers overnight. So I decided to leave the restaurant and work as an entity that could support them.’ The freelance chapter was ‘a huge spurt of creative development and learning,’ she says. ‘I feel very lucky that I have all those experiences and learning to bring home with me to Wales.’
Two Lives Collide
Back in Ammanford after sixteen years away, Bell is no longer the teenager who didn’t fit. ‘Now, as the person I grew into – which is sommelier Cathryn – I see my roots reflected back at me at the table. Roots that seemed jarring to me before now form the basis of connection.’
Working in a room where she can hear Welsh being spoken is profoundly affecting. ‘It’s like a clashing of two lives, two realities being smashed together. When I look down to check the solidity of the bottle of wine in my hand, it’s like the pleasant version of waking up and realising that this, in fact, is not a dream – it’s real.’
Bell experiences wine synaesthetically – a ‘3D’ vision of taste and sensation. ‘It helps me see all the layers and parts, and it helps me look at things from less obvious angles. It’s like listening to the notes in a musical chord and deciding which notes I want to make louder or quieter and which ones I want to hone in on.’
Her creative foil is executive chef, Douglas Balish. ‘Dougie believes in food and wine pairing, and he has the trust and confidence in me to let me work at it the way I do. He’s happy to endure the “workings out” with me and patient enough to interpret my synaesthesia-fuelled explanations.’
One such triumph? ‘A pairing of ex-dairy cow aged beef with celeriac remoulade, ramsons, girolle mushrooms and a black truffle sauce – loaded with shiitake – with Dominio del Cuarzo’s País from Itata… Throw that at the truffle sauce and the alliums and it was like dropping a bath bomb into water.’ More recently, she’s found delight in the unexpected. ‘I’m currently pairing UBE Miraflores – an unfortified, baby manzanilla – with our wasabi ice cream amuse!’
‘Cwtching’ People In
If Bell’s approach has a philosophy, it’s cwtch – the untranslatable Welsh word for safe embrace, belonging, kindness. ‘“Cwtch”, in all of its usage… is about safety – warm safety. I speak about safety a lot – with my team, with anybody who’ll listen.’
That spirit underpins everything from her inclusive, non-alcoholic pairings to her refusal to gate-keep. ‘Jargon and peacocking in front of a race of farmers and miners goes down like a sack of potatoes – or coal. I’m there wholeheartedly to give, to share my passion, my knowledge and experience, to transmit this experience of food and wine.’
She deliberately favours the unfamiliar. ‘I go for less obvious choices with my pairings – the unusual contenders – and my wine lists aspire to take people on a safely guided jolly off the beaten path. You foster trust, and you do that by cwtching people in, giving them something delicious that you know they’ll love – and not hiding how happy that makes you in turn.’
Not all encounters have been cosy. Early in her career, she was accused by an American guest of sexism for apparently addressing only the male diner. ‘I had to politely intervene whilst my brain scrambled together the reality of what was happening, and point out that in this very context, I, in fact, was the female authority in wine… If my interaction with them hadn’t seemed equal, it was only because of shyness on my part.’
That moment shaped her style. ‘It hammered home that wine can be wrapped up in horrible connotations of class, status and knowledge – and that how I projected myself into the medley determined how safe and unthreatening the context could feel. If that means obvious and exaggerated alternated direction of speech and eye contact, like I’m on stage at the panto, so be it.’
Welsh Wine, Unwrapped
Bell is a fierce advocate of Welsh wine – but only those that meet her values. ‘Viticulture in Wales is not for the faint-hearted. But the wines that I’m rooting for are the ones who have taken on this endeavour without chemical intervention in the vineyard or the winery.’
Her favourite makers are ‘low-intervention, high-attention’ practitioners. One standout: Ancre Hill’s biodynamic 2018 Blanc de Blancs Zero Dosage. ‘Crystalline, high toned, star bright, phenollically ripe – with absolutely no make up on, there’s nowhere to hide.’
At Fernery, she paired it with cod, scallops, hazelnuts, asparagus, peas, rhubarb, mussels, and a featherlight morel-based hazelnut fish sauce. ‘How brilliant it is, is testimony to its whole holistic context… an absolute flagship for how brilliant Welsh wine can be.’
Coming Full Circle
At Fernery, Bell does her thing – just as she once did on the northern tip of Zanzibar, where she first found herself unexpectedly in charge of the wine, and later in Ireland, where hospitality became a calling rather than a job. Now, back in Wales, in a dining room where the sound of her first language softly resurfaces, the pieces have come together.
‘I left as an 18-year-old that didn’t belong,’ she says. ‘Now I see my roots reflected back at me at the table. I had to go away to find my way in, I suppose.’
The values which guided her in international development – empathy, generosity, the easing of burdens – still guide her now. Only the tools have changed. Today they include a wine list which nudges guests off-piste, a palate which hears in chords, and a philosophy built on cwtch and shared experience.
‘I was brought up on bread and tea,’ says Bell. ‘What I do now is a gift – and it’s my duty to unwrap it.’
And so she does – one pairing, one table, one quietly transformative moment at a time…
ferneryrestaurant.co.uk | @ferneryrestaurant | tel:+44 (0)1834 860 915
