🔗 Share this article

Every quarter of an hour or so, an ageing diesel-powered train pulls into a spray-painted stop. Close by, a law enforcement alarm pierces the near-constant road noise. Daily travelers rush by falling apart, ivy-draped garden fences as rain clouds form.

It is perhaps the least likely spot you expect to find a perfectly formed grape-growing plot. However James Bayliss-Smith has managed to 40 mature vines heavy with plump mauve berries on a rambling garden plot sandwiched between a line of historic homes and a commuter railway just north of the city town centre.

"I've noticed individuals concealing illegal substances or other items in those bushes," says Bayliss-Smith. "Yet you simply continue ... and continue caring for your grapevines."

Bayliss-Smith, 46, a documentary cameraman who also has a fermented beverage company, is among several local vintner. He's organized a loose collective of growers who produce vintage from several hidden city grape gardens nestled in back gardens and community plots across Bristol. The project is too clandestine to possess an formal title so far, but the collective's messaging chat is called Vineyard Dreams.

City Wine Gardens Across the World

To date, Bayliss-Smith's plot is the sole location listed in the City Vineyard Network's forthcoming world atlas, which features better-known city vineyards such as the 1,800 plants on the hillsides of the French capital's renowned Montmartre neighbourhood and over three thousand grapevines with views of and within Turin. Based in Italy non-profit association is at the forefront of a initiative reviving urban grape cultivation in traditional winemaking nations, but has discovered them all over the globe, including cities in East Asia, Bangladesh and Central Asia.

"Vineyards help cities stay greener and ecologically varied. They preserve open space from construction by creating permanent, productive farming plots within cities," explains the organization's leader.

Similar to other vintages, those created in cities are a result of the soils the plants grow in, the unpredictability of the climate and the individuals who care for the grapes. "Each vintage embodies the charm, local spirit, environment and history of a urban center," adds the president.

Mystery Eastern European Variety

Returning to the city, the grower is in a urgent timeline to gather the vines he cultivated from a cutting abandoned in his allotment by a Polish family. If the rain arrives, then the birds may take advantage to feast again. "Here we have the mystery Polish variety," he says, as he removes damaged and mouldy grapes from the shimmering clusters. "We don't really know what variety they are, but they are certainly hardy. In contrast to noble varieties – Pinot Noir, white wine grapes and additional renowned French grapes – you don't have to treat them with chemicals ... this is possibly a special variety that was bred by the Soviets."

Group Efforts Throughout the City

The other members of the collective are also taking advantage of sunny interludes between showers of autumn rain. On the terrace with views of Bristol's shimmering waterfront, where historic trading ships once bobbed with barrels of vintage from Europe and the Iberian peninsula, one cultivator is collecting her dark berries from about 50 plants. "I adore the smell of the grapevines. It is so reminiscent," she says, stopping with a basket of fruit slung over her shoulder. "It's the scent of Provence when you open the car windows on holiday."

Grant, fifty-two, who has spent over 20 years working for charitable groups in war-torn regions, inadvertently inherited the vineyard when she returned to the United Kingdom from Kenya with her family in recent years. She experienced an strong responsibility to look after the vines in the yard of their recently acquired property. "This vineyard has previously endured three different owners," she explains. "I really like the idea of environmental care – of passing this on to someone else so they can continue producing from the soil."

Sloping Gardens and Natural Winemaking

A short walk away, the final two members of the group are hard at work on the precipitous slopes of the local river valley. One filmmaker has established more than one hundred fifty vines perched on terraces in her wild half-acre garden, which descends towards the silty River Avon. "Visitors frequently express amazement," she says, indicating the interwoven grape garden. "They can't believe they can see grapevine lines in a city street."

Today, the filmmaker, sixty, is picking clusters of deep violet Rondo grapes from rows of plants slung across the cliff-side 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 neighbor's grapevines. She has learned that amateurs can produce intriguing, enjoyable natural wine, which can command prices of upwards of seven pounds a serving in the increasing quantity of wine bars focusing on minimal-intervention wines. "It is incredibly satisfying that you can actually create good, traditional vintage," she states. "It is quite on trend, but really it's resurrecting an traditional method of producing wine."

"When I tread the grapes, all the wild yeasts are released from the skins into the juice," says Scofield, ankle deep in a bucket of tiny stems, seeds and crimson juice. "This represents how wines were historically produced, but commercial producers add preservatives to eliminate the natural cultures and then add a commercially produced culture."

Difficult Environments and Creative Approaches

A few doors down active senior another cultivator, who inspired Scofield to establish her vines, has gathered his companions to pick white wine varieties from the 100 plants he has arranged precisely across multiple levels. The former teacher, 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 cultivate this particular variety in the humidity of the gorge, with temperature fluctuations moving through from the Bristol Channel. "I aimed to produce French-style vintages here, which is a bit bonkers," admits the retiree with amusement. "This variety is late to ripen and very sensitive to fungal infections."

"My goal was creating Burgundian wines in this environment, which is rather ambitious"

The unpredictable local weather is not the sole challenge encountered by grape cultivators. Reeve has been compelled to erect a barrier on