🔗 Share this article

Every quarter of an hour or so, an older diesel-powered train pulls into a graffiti-covered stop. Close by, a police siren cuts through the almost continuous traffic drone. Commuters rush by falling apart, ivy-draped fencing panels as rain clouds form.

It is perhaps the least likely spot you expect to find a well-established vineyard. But one local grower has cultivated four dozen established plants sagging with plump mauve grapes on a sprawling allotment situated between a row of 1930s houses and a local rail line just north of the city downtown.

"I've noticed people concealing heroin or other items in the shrubbery," states Bayliss-Smith. "Yet you just get on with it ... and continue caring for your vines."

The cameraman, forty-six, a filmmaker who also has a fermented beverage company, is not the only urban winemaker. He has pulled together a informal group of cultivators who produce vintage from several hidden city grape gardens nestled in back gardens and allotments across the city. The project is too clandestine to have an formal title yet, but the group's messaging chat is named Vineyard Dreams.

Urban Wine Gardens Around the World

To date, Bayliss-Smith's allotment is the only one registered in the Urban Vineyards Association's upcoming world atlas, which features better-known urban wineries such as the 1,800 vines on the slopes of Paris's renowned Montmartre area and more than 3,000 grapevines with views of and within Turin. The Italian-based non-profit association is at the forefront of a initiative reviving urban grape cultivation in historic wine-producing countries, but has identified them all over the globe, including cities in Japan, Bangladesh and Uzbekistan.

"Grape gardens help urban areas remain greener and more diverse. They preserve open space from construction by establishing permanent, productive agricultural units within cities," says the organization's leader.

Similar to other vintages, those created in cities are a product of the soils the vines thrive in, the unpredictability of the weather and the individuals who care for the fruit. "A bottle of wine represents the beauty, community, environment and history of a city," adds the spokesperson.

Unknown Eastern European Grapes

Returning to Bristol, the grower is in a urgent timeline to harvest the grapevines he grew from a plant abandoned in his garden by a Eastern European household. Should the rain arrives, then the pigeons may seize their chance to attack once more. "Here we have the enigmatic Eastern European variety," he says, as he cleans bruised and rotten berries from the glistering bunches. "The variety remains uncertain their exact classification, but they are certainly hardy. In contrast to premium grapes – Burgundy grapes, white wine grapes and additional renowned European varieties – you don't have to treat them with pesticides ... this could be a unique cultivar that was bred by the Soviets."

Collective Activities Across Bristol

Additional participants of the group are also making the most of sunny interludes between bursts of autumn rain. At a rooftop garden with views of Bristol's shimmering harbour, where medieval merchant vessels once bobbed with barrels of wine from Europe and the Iberian peninsula, one cultivator is harvesting her dark berries from approximately fifty plants. "I adore the aroma of the grapevines. It is so evocative," she remarks, pausing with a container of fruit resting on her shoulder. "It's the scent of southern France when you open the vehicle windows on holiday."

Grant, 52, who has spent over 20 years working for charitable groups in war-torn regions, unexpectedly inherited the vineyard when she returned to the UK from East Africa with her family in 2018. She experienced an overwhelming duty to look after the grapevines in the yard of their new home. "This vineyard has previously endured three different owners," she says. "I deeply appreciate the idea of environmental care – of handing this down to future caretakers so they keep cultivating from this land."

Sloping Gardens and Traditional Production

Nearby, the final two members of the collective are hard at work on the steep inclines of Avon Gorge. One filmmaker has cultivated more than one hundred fifty plants perched on terraces in her wild half-acre garden, which descends towards the muddy River Avon. "Visitors frequently express amazement," she notes, indicating the interwoven grape garden. "It's astonishing to them they are viewing grapevine lines in a city street."

Today, Scofield, sixty, is harvesting clusters of deep violet dark berries from lines of vines slung across the hillside with the assistance of her child, her family member. The conservationist, a wildlife and conservation film-maker who has worked on Netflix's Great National Parks series and television network's Gardeners' World, was inspired to cultivate vines after observing her neighbour's grapevines. She's discovered that amateurs can make intriguing, enjoyable traditional vintage, which can sell for more than seven pounds a glass in the increasing quantity of wine bars specialising in low-processing wines. "It is deeply rewarding that you can actually create good, traditional vintage," she states. "It is quite on trend, but in reality it's reviving an old way of making vintage."

"During foot-stomping the grapes, the various wild yeasts are released from the surfaces into the juice," explains the winemaker, partially submerged in a container of tiny stems, pips and red liquid. "This represents how vintages were made traditionally, but industrial wineries add sulphur [dioxide] to eliminate the natural cultures and subsequently incorporate a lab-grown yeast."

Difficult Environments and Inventive Solutions

In the immediate vicinity sprightly retiree Bob Reeve, who inspired his neighbor to plant her grapevines, has gathered his friends to harvest Chardonnay grapes from one hundred vines he has laid out neatly across two terraces. The former teacher, a northern English PE teacher who taught at the local university developed a passion for viticulture on annual sporting trips to Europe. But it is a difficult task to grow this particular variety in the dampness of the valley, with cooling tides moving through from the nearby estuary. "I wanted to make French-style vintages here, which is a bit bonkers," says Reeve with a smile. "Chardonnay is slow-maturing and very sensitive to fungal infections."

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

The unpredictable Bristol climate is not the only challenge faced by winegrowers. Reeve has had to erect a barrier on