🔗 Share this article

Every 20 minutes or so, an ageing diesel-powered railway carriage arrives at a graffiti-covered station. Close by, a law enforcement alarm pierces the almost continuous traffic drone. Commuters rush by collapsing, ivy-covered garden fences as storm clouds form.

It is perhaps the last place you expect to find a well-established grape-growing plot. But James Bayliss-Smith has cultivated four dozen established plants sagging with plump mauve grapes on a sprawling allotment situated between a row of historic homes and a local rail line just above Bristol town centre.

"I've noticed people hiding heroin or other items in the shrubbery," says Bayliss-Smith. "Yet you simply continue ... and continue caring for your grapevines."

Bayliss-Smith, forty-six, a filmmaker who also has a kombucha drinks business, is among several urban winemaker. He has pulled together a loose collective of cultivators who make vintage from four hidden urban vineyards nestled in private yards and allotments throughout the city. The project is too clandestine to have an formal title so far, but the collective's messaging chat is named Grape Expectations.

City Wine Gardens Around the World

So far, Bayliss-Smith's plot is the sole location registered in the City Vineyard Network's upcoming global directory, which features better-known urban wineries such as the 1,800 plants on the slopes of Paris's renowned Montmartre neighbourhood and more than 3,000 vines overlooking and inside the Italian city. The Italian-based non-profit association is at the vanguard of a movement re-establishing city vineyards in traditional winemaking countries, but has identified them all over the world, including urban centers in East Asia, South Asia and Central Asia.

"Grape gardens assist cities remain more eco-friendly and ecologically varied. They preserve open space from development by establishing long-term, productive agricultural units inside cities," says the association's president.

Like all wines, those produced in cities are a result of the earth the vines grow in, the vagaries of the climate and the individuals who tend the grapes. "Each vintage embodies the charm, local spirit, environment and heritage of a urban center," notes the president.

Unknown Polish Grapes

Returning to the city, Bayliss-Smith is in a race against time to gather the vines he grew from a cutting left in his allotment by a Polish family. If the precipitation arrives, then the pigeons may seize their chance to feast again. "Here we have the mystery Eastern European variety," he comments, as he cleans bruised and mouldy berries from the shimmering bunches. "The variety remains uncertain their exact classification, but they're definitely hardy. Unlike noble varieties – Burgundy grapes, Chardonnay and additional renowned European varieties – you need not spray them with pesticides ... this could be a unique cultivar that was developed by the Eastern Bloc."

Collective Efforts Across Bristol

The other members of the group are additionally taking advantage of sunny interludes between showers of fall precipitation. On the terrace with views of Bristol's shimmering waterfront, where medieval merchant vessels once floated with barrels of vintage from France and Spain, Katy Grant is harvesting her rondo grapes from about fifty vines. "I love the aroma of these vines. The scent is so evocative," she remarks, stopping with a basket of fruit slung over her arm. "It's the scent of Provence when you roll down the car windows on vacation."

The humanitarian worker, fifty-two, who has spent over 20 years working for charitable groups in conflict zones, inadvertently took over the vineyard when she moved back to the United Kingdom from Kenya with her family in recent years. She felt an overwhelming duty to maintain the grapevines in the yard of their new home. "This plot has previously survived three different owners," she says. "I deeply appreciate the idea of environmental care – of handing this down to someone else so they can continue producing from this land."

Terraced Gardens and Natural Production

Nearby, the final two members of the group are hard at work on the precipitous slopes of Avon Gorge. Jo Scofield has cultivated over one hundred fifty vines situated on ledges in her expansive property, which tumbles down towards the silty River Avon. "People are always surprised," she notes, indicating the tangled vineyard. "It's astonishing to them they can see rows of vines in a urban neighborhood."

Currently, the filmmaker, sixty, is picking clusters of dusty purple dark berries from rows of plants slung across the cliff-side with the assistance of her daughter, Luca. Scofield, 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 cultivate vines after seeing her neighbour's vines. She has learned that hobbyists can produce intriguing, pleasurable traditional vintage, which can command prices of more than seven pounds a serving in the growing number of establishments specialising in minimal-intervention wines. "It is deeply rewarding that you can actually make good, natural wine," she states. "It is quite fashionable, but in reality it's reviving an traditional method of producing vintage."

"During foot-stomping the fruit, the various natural microorganisms are released from the skins and enter the liquid," says the winemaker, partially submerged in a container of tiny stems, seeds and crimson juice. "That's how vintages were made traditionally, but industrial wineries introduce preservatives to kill the natural cultures and subsequently incorporate a lab-grown culture."

Difficult Environments and Inventive Solutions

In the immediate vicinity sprightly retiree another cultivator, who inspired Scofield to establish her vines, has gathered his friends to harvest white wine varieties from one hundred plants he has arranged precisely across multiple levels. The former teacher, a Lancashire-born physical education instructor who taught at the local university developed a passion for viticulture on regular visits to Europe. But it is a challenge to cultivate this particular variety in the dampness of the gorge, with temperature fluctuations sweeping in and out from the nearby estuary. "I wanted to produce French-style vintages in this location, which is somewhat ambitious," says the retiree with amusement. "Chardonnay is late to ripen and particularly vulnerable to fungal infections."

"My goal was creating European-style vintages in this environment, which is rather ambitious"

The temperamental Bristol climate is not the sole problem faced by winegrowers. Reeve has been compelled to install a barrier on