🔗 Share this article

Every quarter of an hour or so, an ageing diesel train arrives at a graffiti-covered stop. Close by, a law enforcement alarm pierces the almost continuous road noise. Commuters rush by collapsing, ivy-covered fencing panels as rain clouds form.

It is maybe the least likely spot you anticipate to find a well-established grape-growing plot. However James Bayliss-Smith has cultivated 40 mature vines sagging with round purplish grapes on a rambling garden plot sandwiched between a line of 1930s houses and a local rail line just above the city town centre.

"I've seen people concealing illegal substances or whatever in those bushes," says the grower. "But you just get on with it ... and keep tending to your vines."

The cameraman, forty-six, a documentary cameraman who runs a fermented beverage company, is not the only local vintner. He has organized a informal group of growers who make wine from four hidden city grape gardens nestled in private yards and community plots across the city. The project is too clandestine to possess an official name so far, but the collective's WhatsApp group is called Vineyard Dreams.

Urban Vineyards Across the World

So far, Bayliss-Smith's allotment is the only one listed in the Urban Vineyards Association's upcoming world atlas, which features more famous city vineyards such as the 1,800 vines on the slopes of Paris's renowned artistic district neighbourhood and over three thousand grapevines overlooking and inside the Italian city. The Italian-based non-profit association is at the forefront of a movement re-establishing urban grape cultivation in traditional winemaking nations, but has discovered them all over the world, including cities in Japan, Bangladesh and Central Asia.

"Vineyards help cities remain more eco-friendly and more diverse. They protect land from development by creating permanent, yielding farming plots within urban environments," says the association's president.

Like all wines, those produced in urban areas are a product of the soils the vines thrive in, the vagaries of the climate and the people who tend the fruit. "A bottle of wine embodies the beauty, community, landscape and heritage of a urban center," notes the president.

Mystery Polish Variety

Returning to Bristol, the grower is in a race against time to gather the grapevines he cultivated from a plant abandoned in his allotment by a Polish family. Should the rain arrives, then the birds may seize their chance to feast once more. "Here we have the mystery Polish grape," he says, as he cleans bruised and mouldy grapes from the glistering bunches. "The variety remains uncertain their exact classification, but they are certainly disease-resistant. In contrast to noble varieties – Burgundy grapes, Chardonnay and other famous French grapes – you need not treat them with chemicals ... this could be a special variety that was developed by the Eastern Bloc."

Collective Efforts Across Bristol

Additional participants of the collective are additionally making the most of bright periods between bursts of autumn rain. On the terrace with views of Bristol's shimmering waterfront, where historic trading ships once bobbed with barrels of wine from France and Spain, Katy Grant is collecting her dark berries from about 50 vines. "I adore the aroma of these vines. It is so evocative," she remarks, pausing with a basket of fruit resting on her arm. "It recalls the fragrance of Provence when you open the car windows on holiday."

Grant, fifty-two, who has devoted more than 20 years working for humanitarian organizations in conflict zones, unexpectedly 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 garden of their new home. "This plot has already survived three different owners," she explains. "I deeply appreciate the idea of environmental care – of handing this down to someone else so they can keep cultivating from this land."

Sloping Vineyards and Natural Winemaking

A short walk away, the final two members of the collective are hard at work on the steep inclines of the local river valley. Jo Scofield has cultivated over 150 plants perched on terraces in her wild half-acre garden, which tumbles down towards the silty River Avon. "People are always surprised," she notes, indicating the interwoven grape garden. "They can't believe they are viewing rows of vines in a urban neighborhood."

Today, the filmmaker, 60, is picking bunches of dusty purple dark berries from rows of plants arranged along the hillside with the assistance of her daughter, Luca. Scofield, a documentary producer who has contributed to Netflix's nature programming and television network's gardening shows, was inspired to plant grapes after seeing her neighbor's grapevines. She's discovered that amateurs can make interesting, pleasurable natural wine, which can sell for upwards of £7 a serving in the increasing quantity of wine bars focusing on low-processing vintages. "It's just deeply rewarding that you can actually make quality, traditional vintage," she says. "It is quite on trend, but really it's resurrecting an traditional method of producing vintage."

"During foot-stomping the fruit, all the natural microorganisms are released from the skins and enter the liquid," says Scofield, ankle deep in a container of tiny stems, seeds and red liquid. "That's how vintages were historically produced, but commercial producers introduce preservatives to kill the wild yeast and subsequently incorporate a commercially produced yeast."

Challenging Conditions and Inventive Solutions

A few doors down active senior Bob Reeve, who motivated his neighbor to establish her grapevines, has gathered his friends to pick white wine varieties from one hundred plants he has laid out neatly across two terraces. The former teacher, a Lancashire-born physical education instructor who worked at Bristol University developed a passion for viticulture on regular visits to Europe. However it is a difficult task to grow this particular variety in the humidity of the valley, with temperature fluctuations sweeping in and out from the nearby estuary. "I wanted to make French-style vintages here, which is a bit bonkers," says Reeve with a smile. "This variety is late to ripen and very sensitive to mildew."

"I wanted to make European-style vintages here, which is rather ambitious"

The temperamental Bristol climate is not the sole problem faced by grape cultivators. The gardener has been compelled to erect a barrier on