🔗 Share this article

Each 20 minutes or so, an older diesel train pulls into a graffiti-covered stop. Nearby, a police siren cuts through the near-constant road noise. Commuters hurry past collapsing, ivy-draped fencing panels as storm clouds form.

It is perhaps the least likely spot you anticipate to find a well-established grape-growing plot. However James Bayliss-Smith has cultivated four dozen established plants heavy with round mauve grapes on a sprawling garden plot situated between a row of historic homes and a commuter railway just north of Bristol town centre.

"I've seen people concealing heroin or other items in those bushes," says Bayliss-Smith. "But you just get on with it ... and keep tending to your vines."

Bayliss-Smith, forty-six, a documentary cameraman who also has a kombucha drinks business, is not the only local vintner. He's organized a loose collective of cultivators who make wine from several hidden urban vineyards nestled in private yards and allotments across Bristol. It is sufficiently underground to possess an official name so far, but the group's WhatsApp group is called Grape Expectations.

Urban Wine Gardens Across the Globe

So far, the grower's allotment is the only one registered in the City Vineyard Network's forthcoming global directory, which includes more famous city vineyards such as the eighteen hundred plants on the hillsides of Paris's renowned artistic district area and over 3,000 vines overlooking and inside Turin. Based in Italy non-profit association is at the forefront of a movement re-establishing urban grape cultivation in historic wine-producing countries, but has discovered them throughout the globe, including cities in East Asia, Bangladesh and Uzbekistan.

"Vineyards assist cities remain greener and ecologically varied. These spaces preserve land from development by creating permanent, productive farming plots inside cities," says the organization's leader.

Like all wines, those produced in urban areas are a result of the earth the plants grow in, the unpredictability of the climate and the people who tend the fruit. "A bottle of wine represents the charm, community, landscape and history of a urban center," notes the president.

Unknown Polish Grapes

Returning to Bristol, Bayliss-Smith is in a urgent timeline to harvest the vines he grew from a cutting left in his allotment by a Eastern European household. Should the precipitation arrives, then the birds may seize their chance to attack once more. "This is the enigmatic Polish grape," he says, as he removes bruised and rotten grapes from the glistering bunches. "We don't really know what variety they are, but they are certainly hardy. In contrast to premium grapes – Pinot Noir, white wine grapes and additional renowned French grapes – you need not spray them with pesticides ... this is possibly a special variety that was developed by the Eastern Bloc."

Group Activities Across the City

Additional participants of the collective are additionally taking advantage of sunny interludes between showers of fall precipitation. At a rooftop garden with views of Bristol's glistening waterfront, where historic trading ships once floated with barrels of wine from France and the Iberian peninsula, one cultivator is collecting her dark berries from approximately 50 vines. "I love the smell of these vines. It is so reminiscent," she remarks, stopping with a container of fruit slung over her arm. "It recalls the fragrance of Provence when you roll down the car windows on holiday."

Grant, 52, who has spent over two decades working for charitable groups in war-torn regions, inadvertently inherited the vineyard when she moved back to the United Kingdom from East Africa with her household in recent years. She felt an strong responsibility to look after the vines in the yard of their recently acquired property. "This vineyard has already survived multiple proprietors," she says. "I deeply appreciate the concept of natural stewardship – of passing this on to future caretakers so they keep cultivating from the soil."

Terraced Gardens and Natural Production

A short walk away, the remaining cultivators of the collective are hard at work on the precipitous slopes of Avon Gorge. Jo Scofield has cultivated over 150 vines perched on ledges in her expansive property, which descends towards the silty local waterway. "Visitors frequently express amazement," she says, gesturing towards the tangled vineyard. "It's astonishing to them they can see grapevine lines in a urban neighborhood."

Currently, Scofield, sixty, is harvesting bunches of deep violet Rondo grapes from lines of vines arranged along the hillside with the assistance of her child, her family member. Scofield, a documentary producer who has worked on Netflix's Great National Parks series and BBC Two's gardening shows, was motivated to plant grapes after observing her neighbour's grapevines. She has learned that hobbyists can produce interesting, pleasurable traditional vintage, which can command prices of more than £7 a glass in the growing number of wine bars focusing on low-processing vintages. "It's just incredibly satisfying that you can actually make quality, traditional vintage," she says. "It is quite fashionable, but in reality it's resurrecting an traditional method of making vintage."

"When I tread the grapes, the various wild yeasts come off the skins and enter the juice," says the winemaker, ankle deep in a bucket of tiny stems, seeds and red liquid. "That's how wines were historically produced, but industrial wineries add preservatives to eliminate the wild yeast and then incorporate a lab-grown yeast."

Difficult Environments and Inventive Approaches

A few doors down active senior another cultivator, who motivated his neighbor to plant 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 taught at Bristol University developed a passion for wine on regular visits to Europe. However it is a challenge to grow this particular variety in the dampness of the valley, with cooling tides moving through from the Bristol Channel. "I wanted to make Burgundian wines in this location, which is somewhat ambitious," says the retiree with amusement. "This variety is late to ripen and very sensitive to mildew."

"I wanted to make European-style vintages in this environment, which is rather ambitious"

The unpredictable Bristol climate is not the only challenge encountered by winegrowers. Reeve has been compelled to install a fence on