🔗 Share this article

Every quarter of an hour or so, an older diesel train arrives at a graffiti-covered stop. Nearby, a police siren pierces the near-constant traffic drone. Commuters hurry past falling apart, ivy-draped garden fences as storm clouds form.

It is maybe the least likely spot you expect to find a perfectly formed grape-growing plot. However one local grower has managed to four dozen established plants heavy with plump purplish berries on a rambling allotment situated between a row of 1930s houses and a local rail line just above Bristol downtown.

"I've noticed individuals concealing illegal substances or whatever in those bushes," says the grower. "But you simply continue ... and keep tending to your vines."

Bayliss-Smith, 46, a filmmaker who also has a fermented beverage company, is among several urban winemaker. He's pulled together a loose collective of growers who produce wine from four hidden urban vineyards tucked away in private yards and allotments throughout Bristol. It is too clandestine to possess an formal title yet, but the collective's WhatsApp group is called Vineyard Dreams.

Urban Vineyards Around the World

So far, the grower's plot is the sole location listed in the City Vineyard Network's forthcoming world atlas, which includes more famous city vineyards such as the 1,800 vines on the hillsides of the French capital's historic artistic district area and over three thousand grapevines overlooking and within Turin. Based in Italy non-profit association is at the vanguard of a movement re-establishing urban grape cultivation in traditional winemaking countries, but has identified them all over the world, including urban centers in Japan, Bangladesh and Uzbekistan.

"Vineyards assist cities remain more eco-friendly and ecologically varied. These spaces protect land from construction by establishing permanent, yielding agricultural units within urban environments," explains the organization's leader.

Similar to other vintages, those produced in urban areas are a product of the earth the plants grow in, the unpredictability of the weather and the individuals who care for the fruit. "Each vintage embodies the charm, community, landscape and heritage of a city," adds the spokesperson.

Mystery Polish Variety

Back in the city, the grower is in a urgent timeline to harvest the grapevines he cultivated from a plant abandoned in his allotment by a Polish family. If the precipitation arrives, then the birds may take advantage to attack again. "This is the enigmatic Eastern European variety," he says, as he removes bruised and rotten berries from the shimmering bunches. "The variety remains uncertain their exact classification, but they're definitely disease-resistant. Unlike premium grapes – Pinot Noir, white wine grapes and other famous European varieties – you need not spray them with chemicals ... this could be a special variety that was bred by the Eastern Bloc."

Collective Activities Throughout the City

The other members of the collective are also taking advantage of bright periods between showers of fall precipitation. At a rooftop garden with views of the city's shimmering harbour, where medieval merchant vessels once floated with barrels of vintage from France and the Iberian peninsula, one cultivator is collecting her dark berries from about fifty vines. "I love the aroma of the grapevines. The scent is so reminiscent," she says, pausing with a container of fruit resting on her shoulder. "It's the scent of southern France when you open the vehicle windows on vacation."

Grant, 52, who has spent over 20 years working for charitable groups in conflict zones, inadvertently inherited the vineyard when she moved back to the UK from Kenya with her household in recent years. She experienced an strong responsibility to maintain the grapevines in the yard of their recently acquired property. "This plot has already survived multiple proprietors," she explains. "I deeply appreciate the idea of natural stewardship – of handing this down to someone else so they keep cultivating from the soil."

Sloping Vineyards and Natural Winemaking

A short walk away, the final two members of the group are hard at work on the steep inclines of the local river valley. One filmmaker has cultivated more than 150 vines perched on terraces in her wild half-acre garden, which tumbles down towards the silty local waterway. "People are always surprised," she says, gesturing towards the interwoven grape garden. "It's astonishing to them they can see grapevine lines in a urban neighborhood."

Today, Scofield, 60, is picking bunches of deep violet Rondo grapes from rows of vines arranged along the hillside with the help of her child, Luca. Scofield, a documentary producer who has worked on streaming service's nature programming and BBC Two's gardening shows, was motivated to plant grapes after observing her neighbour's grapevines. She has learned that amateurs can produce intriguing, pleasurable natural wine, which can command prices of upwards of seven pounds a glass in the increasing quantity of establishments focusing on low-processing wines. "It's just deeply rewarding that you can actually make quality, natural wine," she says. "It is quite on trend, but really it's resurrecting an old way of producing vintage."

"During foot-stomping the grapes, the various wild yeasts come off the skins and enter the liquid," says Scofield, partially submerged in a bucket of tiny stems, seeds and red liquid. "This represents how vintages were made traditionally, but commercial producers introduce sulphur [dioxide] to eliminate the natural cultures and then incorporate a lab-grown yeast."

Difficult Conditions and Inventive Solutions

A few doors down sprightly retiree Bob Reeve, who motivated his neighbor to plant her grapevines, has assembled his companions to harvest white wine varieties from one hundred plants he has laid out neatly across two terraces. Reeve, a Lancashire-born physical education instructor who taught at Bristol University cultivated an interest in viticulture on annual sporting trips to France. But it is a difficult task to grow Chardonnay grapes in the dampness of the gorge, with temperature fluctuations moving through from the Bristol Channel. "I wanted to produce Burgundian wines in this location, which is somewhat ambitious," admits Reeve with a smile. "Chardonnay is slow-maturing and very sensitive to fungal infections."

"My goal was creating European-style vintages in this environment, which is rather ambitious"

The temperamental local weather is not the sole problem faced by winegrowers. The gardener has had to erect a fence on