🔗 Share this article

Each 20 minutes or so, an ageing diesel-powered train pulls into a graffiti-covered stop. Nearby, a police siren cuts through the near-constant road noise. Commuters rush by falling apart, ivy-covered fencing panels as rain clouds form.

This is perhaps the last place you expect to find a well-established grape-growing plot. However one local grower has cultivated four dozen established plants heavy with round mauve berries on a rambling allotment sandwiched between a line of historic homes and a local rail line just above the city town centre.

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

Bayliss-Smith, 46, a documentary cameraman who also has a kombucha drinks business, is not the only local vintner. He has organized a loose collective of cultivators who produce wine from several discreet city grape gardens tucked away in private yards and allotments throughout the city. The project is sufficiently underground to possess an formal title so far, but the collective's messaging chat is called Grape Expectations.

Urban Vineyards Around the World

To date, the grower's plot is the only one listed in the City Vineyard Network's forthcoming global directory, which includes more famous city vineyards such as the eighteen hundred vines on the hillsides of the French capital's historic Montmartre area and more than 3,000 grapevines overlooking and within Turin. The Italian-based charitable organization is at the forefront of a movement reviving city vineyards in historic wine-producing nations, but has identified them all over the globe, including cities in Japan, South Asia and Central Asia.

"Vineyards help cities remain more eco-friendly and ecologically varied. They protect land from construction by establishing long-term, productive agricultural units within urban environments," explains the organization's leader.

Similar to other vintages, those produced in cities are a result of the earth the plants thrive in, the vagaries of the climate and the individuals who care for the grapes. "A bottle of wine embodies the beauty, local spirit, environment and heritage of a city," adds the president.

Mystery Polish Variety

Returning to the city, the grower is in a urgent timeline to gather the vines he grew from a plant abandoned in his garden by a Polish family. Should the precipitation arrives, then the pigeons may seize their chance to attack again. "Here we have the enigmatic Polish grape," he says, as he removes damaged and mouldy grapes from the shimmering bunches. "The variety remains uncertain their exact classification, but they're definitely hardy. In contrast to noble varieties – Pinot Noir, white wine grapes and additional renowned French grapes – you don't have to treat them with chemicals ... this could be a special variety that was bred by the Eastern Bloc."

Collective Activities Across Bristol

The other members of the group are also taking advantage of bright periods between showers of fall precipitation. On the terrace with views of Bristol's glistening waterfront, where historic trading ships once bobbed with barrels of vintage from France and Spain, Katy Grant is collecting her rondo grapes from approximately fifty vines. "I love the smell of these vines. It is so reminiscent," she remarks, stopping with a basket of grapes slung over her shoulder. "It recalls the fragrance of Provence when you roll down the vehicle windows on holiday."

The humanitarian worker, fifty-two, who has spent over two decades working for charitable groups in conflict zones, unexpectedly took over the grape garden when she moved back to the United Kingdom from Kenya with her family in recent years. She experienced an strong responsibility to maintain the vines in the yard of their new home. "This vineyard has already endured three different owners," she explains. "I deeply appreciate the idea of environmental care – of handing this down to someone else so they continue producing from this land."

Terraced Vineyards and Natural Production

Nearby, the final two members of the group are busily laboring on the precipitous slopes of the local river valley. Jo Scofield has established over 150 plants perched on terraces in her expansive property, which descends towards the silty River Avon. "People are always surprised," she notes, indicating the tangled grape garden. "They can't believe they are viewing grapevine lines in a urban neighborhood."

Currently, the filmmaker, 60, is picking clusters of deep violet dark berries from lines of plants slung across the hillside with the assistance of her child, her family member. Scofield, a wildlife and conservation film-maker who has contributed to streaming service's nature programming and television network's gardening shows, was motivated to cultivate vines after seeing her neighbor's vines. She's discovered that hobbyists can make interesting, enjoyable traditional vintage, which can command prices of more than £7 a serving in the growing number of establishments specialising in minimal-intervention wines. "It is incredibly satisfying that you can actually create quality, traditional vintage," she says. "It is quite on trend, but really it's resurrecting an old way of producing vintage."

"When I tread the grapes, all the wild yeasts come off the skins and enter the liquid," explains Scofield, partially submerged in a bucket of small branches, seeds and red liquid. "That's how wines were made traditionally, but industrial wineries introduce sulphur [dioxide] to kill the wild yeast and subsequently incorporate a lab-grown culture."

Challenging Conditions and Creative Approaches

A few doors down active senior Bob Reeve, who motivated his neighbor to plant her vines, has gathered his friends to harvest white wine varieties from the 100 plants he has laid out neatly across multiple levels. Reeve, a Lancashire-born physical education instructor who worked at Bristol University cultivated an interest in wine on regular visits to France. However it is a difficult task to grow this particular variety in the dampness of the valley, with temperature fluctuations sweeping in and out from the Bristol Channel. "I wanted to make French-style vintages in this location, which is a bit bonkers," says Reeve with amusement. "Chardonnay is slow-maturing and very sensitive to fungal infections."

"My goal was creating European-style vintages here, which is rather ambitious"

The unpredictable Bristol climate is not the only problem faced by grape cultivators. Reeve has had to install a fence on