🔗 Share this article

Each 20 minutes or so, an ageing diesel railway carriage pulls into a graffiti-covered station. Nearby, a police siren cuts through the almost continuous road noise. Daily travelers hurry past falling apart, ivy-covered fencing panels as rain clouds gather.

This is perhaps the least likely spot you expect to find a well-established grape-growing plot. However James Bayliss-Smith has managed to 40 mature vines heavy with round mauve grapes on a rambling garden plot sandwiched between a line of 1930s houses and a commuter railway just above the city downtown.

"I've noticed people concealing heroin or other items in the shrubbery," says Bayliss-Smith. "But you just get on with it ... and keep tending to your grapevines."

Bayliss-Smith, 46, a filmmaker who also has a fermented beverage company, is not the only local vintner. He's pulled together a informal group of growers who make vintage from four discreet urban vineyards tucked away in private yards and allotments across the city. The project is sufficiently underground to have an official name yet, but the collective's WhatsApp group is called Vineyard Dreams.

Urban Wine Gardens Around the Globe

To date, the grower's allotment is the sole location registered in the Urban Vineyards Association's forthcoming global directory, which features better-known city vineyards such as the 1,800 vines on the hillsides of Paris's renowned Montmartre area and more than 3,000 vines overlooking and within the Italian city. Based in Italy non-profit association is at the forefront of a initiative reviving city vineyards in historic wine-producing countries, but has identified them all over the globe, including cities in Japan, South Asia and Central Asia.

"Vineyards assist cities stay more eco-friendly and more diverse. They protect land from construction by creating permanent, yielding agricultural units inside urban environments," says the organization's leader.

Similar to other vintages, those produced in urban areas are a product of the earth the vines grow in, the unpredictability of the climate and the people who tend the grapes. "Each vintage represents the charm, community, environment and history of a urban center," adds the spokesperson.

Unknown Polish Grapes

Returning to Bristol, Bayliss-Smith is in a urgent timeline to gather the grapevines he cultivated from a plant abandoned in his allotment by a Eastern European household. Should the rain arrives, then the birds may seize their chance to feast once more. "Here we have the mystery Eastern European grape," he says, as he removes bruised and rotten grapes from the glistering clusters. "We don't really know their exact classification, but they are certainly hardy. In contrast to noble varieties – Pinot Noir, white wine grapes and other famous European varieties – you need not spray them with chemicals ... this could be a unique cultivar that was bred by the Soviets."

Group Activities Throughout Bristol

The other members of the group are additionally making the most of sunny interludes between showers of fall precipitation. On the terrace with views of Bristol's shimmering waterfront, where medieval merchant vessels once floated with barrels of wine from France and Spain, Katy Grant is harvesting her dark berries from approximately 50 plants. "I adore the aroma of the grapevines. The scent is so reminiscent," she says, stopping with a container of fruit slung over her shoulder. "It's the scent of southern France when you open the car windows on vacation."

The humanitarian worker, fifty-two, who has devoted more than two decades working for charitable groups in war-torn regions, inadvertently took over the vineyard when she moved back to the United Kingdom from East Africa with her household in 2018. She felt an strong responsibility to look after the vines in the garden of their recently acquired property. "This plot has already endured multiple proprietors," she says. "I really like the concept of environmental care – of passing this on to future caretakers so they can keep cultivating from this land."

Sloping Vineyards and Natural Production

A short walk away, the final two members of the group are busily laboring on the steep inclines of Avon Gorge. Jo Scofield has established over 150 plants situated on terraces in her expansive property, which tumbles down towards the silty local waterway. "Visitors frequently express amazement," she notes, gesturing towards the interwoven vineyard. "They can't believe they are viewing rows of vines in a city street."

Currently, the filmmaker, 60, is harvesting clusters of deep violet Rondo grapes from rows of plants arranged along the cliff-side with the assistance of her daughter, Luca. The conservationist, a wildlife and conservation film-maker who has contributed to streaming service's Great National Parks series and BBC Two's Gardeners' World, was inspired to cultivate vines after seeing her neighbor's grapevines. She has learned that amateurs can make intriguing, pleasurable traditional vintage, which can command prices of more than £7 a glass in the growing number of establishments focusing on low-processing wines. "It is deeply rewarding that you can actually make good, traditional vintage," she states. "It is quite fashionable, but really it's reviving an traditional method of producing wine."

"During foot-stomping the grapes, all the wild yeasts are released from the skins and enter the liquid," says Scofield, ankle deep in a container of tiny stems, seeds and crimson juice. "That's how vintages were made traditionally, but industrial wineries introduce preservatives to kill the wild yeast and then add a lab-grown yeast."

Challenging Environments and Creative Approaches

In the immediate vicinity sprightly retiree another cultivator, who inspired Scofield to establish her grapevines, has gathered his friends to pick white wine varieties from one hundred plants he has arranged precisely across multiple levels. The former teacher, a northern English physical education instructor who taught at the local university developed a passion for viticulture on annual sporting trips to France. However it is a difficult task to grow Chardonnay grapes in the dampness of the valley, with temperature fluctuations sweeping in and out from the nearby estuary. "I aimed to produce Burgundian wines in this location, which is a bit bonkers," admits the retiree with a smile. "Chardonnay is late to ripen and very sensitive to fungal infections."

"My goal was creating European-style vintages in this environment, which is a bit bonkers"

The unpredictable local weather is not the sole problem encountered by grape cultivators. The gardener has been compelled to erect a fence on