The Restaurant Guide for Wine Lovers
Asador 44
Asador 44 is a Spanish charcoal grill in central Cardiff whose entirely Spanish cellar is one of the most serious and curious of its kind in Britain. The wine programme achieves real mutual elevation — dry Sherry for the snacks and cured fish, aged Rioja for the fire-cooked beef, a Sherry-sauced dish mirrored straight off the list — and backs it with three Sherry flights, a deep dry-and-sweet fortified corner and rare aged Rioja held in ones and twos. It will most reward the curious drinker who wants to explore Spain in depth and let a knowing team lead the way.
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Fernery (Grove of Narberth)
Narberth, Wales
Modern British tasting menu
Fernery is the tasting-menu dining room of a Pembrokeshire country-house hotel, cooking a tightly local, seasonal Welsh menu. Its wine programme is a deep, sommelier-led and constantly evolving list that matches genuine cellar range to the kitchen's produce, with a per-course flight and an accessible by-the-glass shortlist beneath the fine and rare bottles. It will most reward the wine lover who wants a serious list read with care — and who is happy to lean on a knowledgeable sommelier team to navigate it.
Read the assessmentBeach House
Swansea, Wales
Modern British (hyper-local Welsh)
Beach House is a Michelin-starred restaurant on the sand at Oxwich Bay, cooking an ambitious, hyper-local Welsh tasting menu a long way from any city. Its wine programme is exceptional for its setting — a genuinely global, adventurous, indigenous-grape-led list with grand bottles offered by the glass and the half-carafe, and a full sweet, fortified and Sherry range by the small measure. It will most reward the curious drinker who wants to travel the wine world by the glass alongside a serious tasting menu, and who trusts a deep list to lead.
Read the assessmentThe Whitebrook
Whitebrook, Wales
Place-led tasting menu / modern British
The Whitebrook is a Michelin-starred, place-led restaurant with rooms in the Wye Valley, cooking a foraged, fermented, micro-seasonal tasting menu drawn almost entirely from its own valley. Its wine list matches that ambition exactly — a principled, category-leading sustainable cellar with remarkable Welsh and English depth, a large orange and skin-contact section built for the ferments, mature classics and a complete sweet corner — and a course-by-course pairing that makes the integration effortless. It will most reward the diner who commits to the tasting menu and the pairing and wants a genuinely distinctive, deeply local list to carry an occasion.
Read the assessmentThe Walnut Tree
Abergavenny, Wales
Modern British / classical
The Walnut Tree is a long-established Michelin-starred restaurant outside Abergavenny, where chef Shaun Hill cooks classical, ingredient-led food. Its wine programme is a personal, artisan-favouring list of real depth and, above all, exceptional flexibility — five by-the-glass measures and a run of half-bottles let a table drink well course by course — held just short of the top by a thin dry-fortified corner and a deliberately curated rather than encyclopaedic range. It will most reward the diner who wants to match classical cooking glass by glass from an opinionated, well-priced list, and who trusts a chef's own palate to have chosen well.
Read the assessmentThe Black Bear Inn
Bettws Newydd, Wales
Modern British gastropub / seafood
The Black Bear Inn is a country dining pub in the Usk valley cooking a short, seasonal, seafood-strong British menu from named local producers. Its wine programme is the genuine surprise — a low-intervention, discovery-minded cellar of real depth, with grower Champagne, an orange-wine section, a mature fine-wine tail, dry Sherry by the glass and a complete sweet corner — and it answers the kitchen's hardest plates more fluently than many grander lists manage. It will most reward the curious drinker who comes for the fish and wants to explore a thoughtful, well-priced list, and who is happy to ask the floor for the current wines by the glass.
Read the assessmentPasture
Cardiff, Wales
Steakhouse
Pasture is an open-fire, dry-aged steakhouse in central Cardiff whose cellar is far more ambitious than the genre requires, from fairly-priced house bottles to a bench of blue-chip icons offered by the glass. The wine programme achieves real mutual elevation with the beef and backs it with a strong Champagne offer and a genuine Welsh local thread, let down only by the absence of a fortified-and-dessert offering and any printed pairing guidance. It will most reward the steak-lover who wants to drink a serious red with charcoal-aged beef, and who is happy to lean on the by-the-glass programme to trade up for a course.
Read the assessmentCurado Bar
Cardiff, Wales
Spanish / Basque tapas and pintxos
Curado Bar is a Basque and Spanish pintxos and tapas bar in central Cardiff, sibling to the city's Bar 44, serving directly imported Spanish food built for grazing. Its wine programme is an all-Spanish, region-by-region cellar with a model Sherry-by-the-measure offer that answers the menu's hardest plates better than almost any list of its size, held just off the top tier by a two-year-old published list and no Champagne. It will most reward the curious drinker happy to explore Spain by the glass and the measure, and to be talked into a dry Fino with the anchovies.
Read the assessmentBar 44
Cardiff, Wales
Spanish tapas
Bar 44 is a Spanish tapas bar in central Cardiff whose all-Spanish list carries a Sherry programme far deeper than the category usually sees. The wine offering earns its standing on that Sherry range and on the coherence of an all-Spanish cellar built to mirror the food, held back only by a thin, Cava-only sparkling shelf and the absence of printed pairing guidance. It will most reward the diner who comes to eat tapas and lets the Sherry lead, and who is happy to ask the floor team for the match.
Read the assessment