🔗 Share this article

Every 20 minutes or so, an older diesel train arrives at a graffiti-covered station. Close by, a police siren pierces the near-constant traffic drone. Commuters hurry past falling apart, ivy-draped garden fences as storm clouds form.

This is perhaps the last place you anticipate to find a well-established vineyard. However one local grower has managed to four dozen established plants sagging with round mauve berries on a sprawling garden plot sandwiched between a row of historic homes and a local rail line just north of the city downtown.

"I've noticed individuals concealing illegal substances or other items in the shrubbery," states the grower. "But you just get on with it ... and keep tending to your vines."

Bayliss-Smith, forty-six, a filmmaker who also has a kombucha drinks business, is among several local vintner. He's organized a loose collective of growers who make wine from four hidden urban vineyards nestled in back gardens and allotments across the city. It is too clandestine to possess an formal title so far, but the collective's messaging chat is called Vineyard Dreams.

Urban Vineyards Around the World

So far, the grower's allotment is the only one listed in the City Vineyard Network's upcoming world atlas, which includes better-known city vineyards such as the eighteen hundred plants on the hillsides of Paris's historic artistic district neighbourhood and more than 3,000 vines overlooking and within Turin. Based in Italy charitable organization is at the vanguard of a movement re-establishing city vineyards in traditional winemaking nations, but has identified them all over the world, including urban centers in Japan, South Asia and Uzbekistan.

"Grape gardens help cities stay greener and more diverse. These spaces protect land from construction by establishing long-term, productive farming plots inside cities," explains the association's president.

Like all wines, those created in cities are a result of the earth the vines grow in, the unpredictability of the climate and the people who tend the grapes. "A bottle of wine represents the beauty, community, environment and heritage of a urban center," adds the spokesperson.

Unknown Polish Grapes

Back in the city, Bayliss-Smith is in a urgent timeline to harvest the vines he grew from a plant left in his allotment by a Polish family. Should the rain comes, then the pigeons may take advantage to feast once more. "Here we have the enigmatic Eastern European variety," he comments, as he cleans bruised and mouldy berries from the glistering clusters. "The variety remains uncertain what variety they are, but they're definitely disease-resistant. Unlike premium grapes – Burgundy grapes, white wine grapes and other famous French grapes – you don't have to spray them with pesticides ... this is possibly a unique cultivar that was developed by the Eastern Bloc."

Collective Efforts Across Bristol

The other members of the collective are also taking advantage of bright periods between bursts of autumn rain. On the terrace overlooking Bristol's shimmering harbour, where historic trading ships once floated with barrels of wine from France and the Iberian peninsula, one cultivator is harvesting her rondo grapes from approximately fifty plants. "I adore the aroma of the grapevines. It is so evocative," she says, stopping with a container of grapes resting on her arm. "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 conflict zones, inadvertently inherited the vineyard when she moved back to the UK from East Africa with her household in 2018. She experienced an overwhelming duty to look after the vines in the garden of their new home. "This plot has already endured three different owners," she says. "I deeply appreciate the idea of natural stewardship – of handing this down to future caretakers so they can continue producing from this land."

Terraced Vineyards and Natural Production

A short walk away, the remaining cultivators of the group are hard at work on the steep inclines of the local river valley. Jo Scofield has established over one hundred fifty vines perched on ledges in her expansive property, which tumbles down towards the muddy River Avon. "Visitors frequently express amazement," she notes, gesturing towards the interwoven grape garden. "It's astonishing to them they are viewing grapevine lines in a city street."

Currently, Scofield, 60, is picking clusters of deep violet dark berries from rows of plants slung across the cliff-side with the help of her child, her family member. The conservationist, a wildlife and conservation film-maker who has contributed to Netflix's Great National Parks series 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 sell for upwards of £7 a serving in the growing number of wine bars focusing on minimal-intervention wines. "It is incredibly satisfying that you can actually create good, natural wine," she states. "It is quite fashionable, but really it's reviving an old way of producing wine."

"When I tread the fruit, the various wild yeasts come off the skins into the juice," explains Scofield, partially submerged in a container of tiny stems, pips and crimson juice. "This represents how vintages were made traditionally, but industrial wineries introduce preservatives to eliminate the wild yeast and then add a lab-grown culture."

Difficult Environments and Inventive Approaches

In the immediate vicinity active senior Bob Reeve, who inspired his neighbor to establish her grapevines, has gathered his companions to pick white wine varieties from one hundred plants he has laid out neatly across two terraces. Reeve, a Lancashire-born physical education instructor who worked at Bristol University cultivated an interest in wine on annual sporting trips to Europe. However it is a challenge to grow this particular variety in the humidity of the gorge, with temperature fluctuations sweeping in and out from the nearby estuary. "I aimed to make Burgundian wines in this location, which is a bit bonkers," says Reeve with amusement. "This variety is slow-maturing and very sensitive to fungal infections."

"My goal was creating Burgundian wines in this environment, which is a bit bonkers"

The unpredictable Bristol climate is not the sole challenge faced by grape cultivators. Reeve has had to install a barrier on