🔗 Share this article

Every quarter of an hour or so, an ageing diesel railway carriage arrives at a graffiti-covered station. Nearby, a police siren pierces the almost continuous road noise. Daily travelers hurry past collapsing, ivy-draped fencing panels as rain clouds form.

It is maybe the last place you expect to find a well-established vineyard. But James Bayliss-Smith has cultivated four dozen established plants sagging with plump mauve berries on a sprawling garden plot situated between a line of 1930s houses and a local rail line just above Bristol downtown.

"I've seen individuals concealing illegal substances or other items in the shrubbery," states the grower. "Yet you just get on with it ... and continue caring for your grapevines."

The cameraman, forty-six, a filmmaker who runs a fermented beverage company, is not the only urban winemaker. He's organized a informal group of growers who make wine from four hidden city grape gardens tucked away in private yards and allotments throughout the city. It is sufficiently underground to have an formal title so far, but the collective's WhatsApp group is called Vineyard Dreams.

Urban Wine Gardens Across the Globe

To date, the grower's allotment is the only one registered in the Urban Vineyards Association's forthcoming global directory, which features more famous urban wineries such as the eighteen hundred vines on the hillsides of the French capital's historic Montmartre neighbourhood and over 3,000 grapevines overlooking and inside Turin. Based in Italy charitable organization is at the vanguard of a movement re-establishing urban grape cultivation in historic wine-producing nations, but has identified them throughout the world, including cities in Japan, South Asia and Central Asia.

"Vineyards assist urban areas stay more eco-friendly and ecologically varied. They preserve land from development by creating permanent, yielding agricultural units inside cities," says the organization's leader.

Similar to other vintages, those produced in urban areas are a product of the soils the vines thrive in, the vagaries of the weather and the people who care for the fruit. "Each vintage represents the charm, local spirit, landscape and history of a urban center," adds the president.

Unknown Polish Grapes

Back in Bristol, the grower is in a urgent timeline to harvest the grapevines he grew from a plant left in his garden by a Polish family. If the precipitation comes, then the pigeons may seize their chance to feast once more. "This is the mystery Eastern European variety," he says, as he cleans bruised and mouldy berries from the shimmering bunches. "The variety remains uncertain their exact classification, but they're definitely disease-resistant. Unlike noble varieties – Pinot Noir, white wine grapes and additional renowned French grapes – you need not spray them with chemicals ... this is possibly a special variety that was bred by the Eastern Bloc."

Group Efforts Across the City

Additional participants of the collective are additionally making the most of bright periods between showers of autumn rain. At a rooftop garden with views of Bristol's glistening waterfront, where medieval merchant vessels once floated with barrels of wine from France and Spain, Katy Grant is harvesting her dark berries from about fifty plants. "I love the aroma of these vines. It is so evocative," she says, stopping with a basket of grapes resting on her arm. "It recalls the fragrance of Provence when you open the car windows on vacation."

The humanitarian worker, fifty-two, who has spent over two decades working for charitable groups in war-torn regions, inadvertently took over the grape garden when she moved back to the United Kingdom from Kenya with her family in 2018. She experienced an strong responsibility to maintain the grapevines in the garden of their new home. "This vineyard has already survived three different owners," she explains. "I really like the idea of environmental care – of passing this on to future caretakers so they continue producing from the soil."

Terraced Vineyards and Natural Winemaking

A short walk away, the remaining cultivators of the group are hard at work on the steep inclines of Avon Gorge. One filmmaker has cultivated over 150 plants situated on terraces in her wild half-acre garden, which tumbles down towards the muddy local waterway. "People are always surprised," she notes, indicating the tangled grape garden. "They can't believe they are viewing rows of vines in a city street."

Currently, the filmmaker, 60, is picking clusters of deep violet dark berries from lines of plants slung across the cliff-side with the assistance of her daughter, her family member. Scofield, a documentary producer who has contributed to Netflix's Great National Parks series and BBC Two's gardening shows, was motivated to plant grapes after seeing her neighbour's vines. She has learned that amateurs can make interesting, enjoyable natural wine, which can sell for more than £7 a glass in the increasing quantity of wine bars specialising in minimal-intervention vintages. "It is incredibly satisfying that you can truly make good, traditional vintage," she states. "It's very fashionable, but in reality it's reviving an traditional method of producing vintage."

"When I tread the fruit, the various natural microorganisms come off the surfaces into the juice," says the winemaker, partially submerged in a container of small branches, pips and red liquid. "That's how wines were historically produced, but industrial wineries introduce sulphur [dioxide] to eliminate the natural cultures and then add a lab-grown culture."

Difficult Conditions and Creative Approaches

In the immediate vicinity sprightly retiree another cultivator, who motivated his neighbor to plant her vines, has assembled his friends to harvest white wine varieties from the 100 plants he has laid out neatly across two terraces. Reeve, a Lancashire-born physical education instructor who worked at the local university cultivated an interest in viticulture on annual sporting trips to France. But it is a challenge to grow Chardonnay grapes in the dampness of the gorge, with temperature fluctuations moving through from the nearby estuary. "I wanted to make Burgundian wines here, which is somewhat ambitious," admits Reeve with a smile. "This variety is late to ripen and particularly vulnerable to mildew."

"I wanted to make Burgundian wines in this environment, which is a bit bonkers"

The unpredictable local weather is not the sole challenge encountered by winegrowers. Reeve has had to install a barrier on