🔗 Share this article

Each quarter of an hour or so, an ageing diesel railway carriage arrives at a spray-painted stop. Close by, a police siren cuts through the almost continuous traffic drone. Daily travelers rush by collapsing, ivy-covered garden fences as rain clouds gather.

This is perhaps the last place you expect to find a well-established grape-growing plot. But James Bayliss-Smith has cultivated 40 mature vines sagging with plump purplish berries on a rambling allotment situated between a line of historic homes and a local rail line just north of Bristol downtown.

"I've noticed individuals concealing illegal substances or other items in the shrubbery," states Bayliss-Smith. "But you simply continue ... and continue caring for your vines."

Bayliss-Smith, forty-six, a filmmaker who runs a fermented beverage company, is not the only local vintner. He's pulled together a loose collective of growers who make wine from four discreet urban vineyards nestled in private yards and allotments throughout Bristol. The project is sufficiently underground to possess an official name so far, but the group's WhatsApp group is called Vineyard Dreams.

City Vineyards Around the World

To date, Bayliss-Smith's plot is the sole location listed in the City Vineyard Network's upcoming global directory, which includes better-known urban wineries such as the eighteen hundred vines on the hillsides of Paris's renowned artistic district neighbourhood and over three thousand vines with views of and inside Turin. The Italian-based non-profit association is at the forefront of a movement reviving urban grape cultivation in traditional winemaking nations, but has identified them throughout the globe, including urban centers in East Asia, Bangladesh and Central Asia.

"Grape gardens assist urban areas stay more eco-friendly and ecologically varied. They protect land from construction by establishing long-term, productive farming plots inside cities," explains the association's president.

Like all wines, those produced in urban areas are a result of the earth the vines grow in, the vagaries of the weather and the people who care for the grapes. "A bottle of wine represents the charm, community, environment and history of a urban center," notes the president.

Unknown Polish Variety

Back in Bristol, the grower is in a urgent timeline to harvest the grapevines he grew from a cutting left in his garden by a Eastern European household. Should the precipitation arrives, then the pigeons may seize their chance to attack again. "Here we have the mystery Polish grape," he comments, as he cleans bruised and mouldy grapes from the shimmering bunches. "The variety remains uncertain their exact classification, but they are certainly hardy. Unlike noble varieties – Burgundy grapes, Chardonnay and other famous European varieties – you don't have to treat them with pesticides ... this is possibly a unique cultivar that was developed by the Eastern Bloc."

Group Efforts Across Bristol

The other members of the group are also taking advantage of bright periods between showers of fall precipitation. At a rooftop garden with views of the city's shimmering waterfront, where historic trading ships once floated with barrels of wine from Europe and the Iberian peninsula, Katy Grant is collecting her dark berries from approximately fifty plants. "I love the aroma of these vines. It is so reminiscent," she says, stopping with a container of fruit slung over her shoulder. "It's the scent of Provence when you open the car windows on holiday."

Grant, 52, who has spent over two decades working for humanitarian organizations in war-torn regions, unexpectedly took over the vineyard when she moved back to the United Kingdom from Kenya with her family in recent years. She experienced an overwhelming duty to maintain the vines in the yard of their new home. "This vineyard has previously survived three different owners," she explains. "I really like the idea of environmental care – of passing this on to future caretakers so they keep cultivating from this land."

Terraced Gardens and Natural Production

A short walk away, the final two members of the collective are hard at work on the precipitous slopes of Avon Gorge. One filmmaker has established more than 150 vines situated on terraces in her expansive property, which descends towards the muddy local waterway. "People are always surprised," she notes, gesturing towards the interwoven grape garden. "It's astonishing to them they are viewing grapevine lines in a city street."

Currently, Scofield, sixty, is harvesting bunches of dusty purple dark berries from lines of vines arranged along the hillside with the assistance of her daughter, Luca. The conservationist, a wildlife and conservation film-maker who has worked on Netflix's Great National Parks series and BBC Two's Gardeners' World, was inspired to plant grapes after seeing her neighbor's grapevines. She's discovered that amateurs can produce intriguing, enjoyable traditional vintage, which can command prices of more than seven pounds a glass in the growing number of establishments focusing on minimal-intervention vintages. "It is deeply rewarding that you can actually create good, traditional vintage," she says. "It is quite fashionable, but in reality it's reviving an old way of producing vintage."

"When I tread the fruit, the various wild yeasts come off the skins into the liquid," explains Scofield, ankle deep in a container of small branches, seeds and crimson juice. "That's how wines were made traditionally, but commercial producers add preservatives to kill the natural cultures and then incorporate a lab-grown culture."

Difficult Conditions and Inventive Approaches

In the immediate vicinity sprightly retiree Bob Reeve, who inspired his neighbor to plant her vines, has assembled his companions to harvest Chardonnay grapes from the 100 vines he has laid out neatly across two terraces. The former teacher, a Lancashire-born PE teacher who taught at Bristol University cultivated an interest in viticulture on annual sporting trips to France. But it is a challenge to grow Chardonnay grapes in the humidity of the valley, with temperature fluctuations sweeping in and out from the Bristol Channel. "I aimed to make French-style vintages here, which is a bit bonkers," admits the retiree with a smile. "This variety is slow-maturing and particularly vulnerable to fungal infections."

"My goal was creating European-style vintages here, which is a bit bonkers"

The temperamental local weather is not the only challenge encountered by winegrowers. The gardener has been compelled to install a fence on