🔗 Share this article

Every quarter of an hour or so, an ageing diesel railway carriage pulls into a graffiti-covered stop. Close by, a police siren pierces the almost continuous road noise. Daily travelers hurry past collapsing, ivy-draped fencing panels as rain clouds gather.

This is perhaps the last place you anticipate to find a perfectly formed grape-growing plot. But one local grower has managed to four dozen established plants heavy with plump purplish grapes on a sprawling garden plot sandwiched between a row of 1930s houses and a commuter railway just north of Bristol downtown.

"I've noticed people hiding illegal substances or other items in those bushes," says Bayliss-Smith. "But you just get on with it ... and continue caring for your grapevines."

Bayliss-Smith, forty-six, a documentary cameraman who also has a fermented beverage company, is not the only local vintner. He has pulled together a informal group of growers who produce vintage from four hidden urban vineyards nestled in private yards and allotments throughout Bristol. The project is too clandestine to have an formal title yet, but the collective's messaging chat is called Vineyard Dreams.

Urban Wine Gardens Around the World

To date, Bayliss-Smith's plot is the only one registered in the Urban Vineyards Association's upcoming global directory, which includes better-known urban wineries such as the eighteen hundred plants on the hillsides of the French capital's historic Montmartre area and more than 3,000 grapevines with views of and inside the Italian city. The Italian-based 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 world, including cities in East Asia, Bangladesh and Uzbekistan.

"Vineyards assist urban areas remain greener and more diverse. These spaces protect land from development by creating long-term, productive agricultural units within cities," says the association's president.

Like all wines, those created in urban areas are a product of the earth the vines thrive in, the vagaries of the climate and the people who care for the grapes. "Each vintage represents the charm, community, landscape and heritage of a city," adds the spokesperson.

Mystery Polish Variety

Back in the city, Bayliss-Smith is in a race against time to gather the grapevines he cultivated from a cutting abandoned in his allotment by a Eastern European household. Should the rain arrives, then the birds may take advantage to feast again. "Here we have the mystery Eastern European variety," he comments, as he removes damaged and mouldy grapes from the shimmering clusters. "We don't really know their exact classification, but they are certainly disease-resistant. In contrast to premium grapes – Burgundy grapes, Chardonnay and other famous French grapes – you need not treat them with pesticides ... this is possibly a unique cultivar that was developed by the Eastern Bloc."

Group Activities Across the City

Additional participants of the group are also making the most of sunny interludes between bursts of autumn rain. On the terrace overlooking Bristol's glistening harbour, where medieval merchant vessels once floated with barrels of vintage from Europe and Spain, one cultivator is harvesting her rondo grapes from about 50 vines. "I adore the aroma of these vines. The scent is so evocative," she remarks, stopping with a container of grapes slung over her arm. "It's the scent of Provence when you roll down the vehicle windows on vacation."

Grant, 52, who has spent over two decades working for humanitarian organizations in war-torn regions, unexpectedly inherited the vineyard when she moved back to the United Kingdom from Kenya with her family in 2018. She experienced an overwhelming duty to look after the grapevines in the yard of their recently acquired property. "This vineyard has previously endured three different owners," she explains. "I really like the concept of natural stewardship – of passing this on to future caretakers so they can keep cultivating from the soil."

Terraced Gardens and Natural Winemaking

A short walk away, the remaining cultivators of the group are busily laboring on the precipitous slopes of the local river valley. One filmmaker has established more than 150 plants perched on ledges in her wild half-acre garden, which tumbles down towards the silty local waterway. "People are always surprised," she notes, indicating the tangled vineyard. "They can't believe they are viewing grapevine lines in a urban neighborhood."

Today, the filmmaker, 60, is picking clusters of dusty purple dark berries from lines of vines arranged along the cliff-side with the assistance of her daughter, Luca. Scofield, a documentary producer who has worked on Netflix's nature programming and television network's gardening shows, was motivated to cultivate vines after seeing her neighbor's vines. She has learned that amateurs can produce interesting, pleasurable traditional vintage, which can sell for more than seven pounds a glass in the growing number of wine bars specialising in minimal-intervention wines. "It is incredibly satisfying that you can actually make quality, natural wine," she states. "It is quite on trend, but really it's resurrecting an old way of making wine."

"When I tread the fruit, all the wild yeasts are released from the surfaces into the juice," says the winemaker, ankle deep in a container of tiny stems, pips and red liquid. "That's how vintages were historically produced, but commercial producers add sulphur [dioxide] to eliminate the wild yeast and subsequently add a commercially produced yeast."

Challenging Environments and Creative Approaches

A few doors down sprightly retiree Bob Reeve, who motivated Scofield to establish her vines, has gathered his friends to pick Chardonnay grapes from the 100 vines he has arranged precisely across multiple levels. The former teacher, a northern English PE teacher who worked at Bristol University cultivated an interest in viticulture on annual sporting trips to France. However it is a challenge to cultivate Chardonnay grapes in the dampness 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," says Reeve with amusement. "This variety is late to ripen and very sensitive to fungal infections."

"I wanted to make Burgundian wines here, which is a bit bonkers"

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