🔗 Share this article

Every 20 minutes or so, an older diesel railway carriage arrives at a spray-painted stop. Nearby, a police siren cuts through the almost continuous traffic drone. Daily travelers hurry past falling apart, ivy-covered garden fences as rain clouds form.

It is maybe the least likely spot you expect to find a well-established grape-growing plot. However James Bayliss-Smith has cultivated 40 mature vines heavy with plump mauve grapes on a sprawling garden plot situated between a row of historic homes and a local rail line just above the city downtown.

"I've noticed individuals concealing illegal substances or other items in those bushes," says Bayliss-Smith. "Yet you just get on with it ... and continue caring for your vines."

Bayliss-Smith, forty-six, a documentary cameraman who runs a kombucha drinks business, is among several local vintner. He's pulled together a loose collective of cultivators who produce wine from several discreet urban vineyards nestled in back gardens and community plots across Bristol. It is too clandestine to possess an formal title so far, but the group's WhatsApp group is called Grape Expectations.

City Vineyards Around the Globe

To date, Bayliss-Smith's plot is the only one registered in the Urban Vineyards Association's forthcoming world atlas, which includes more famous city vineyards such as the eighteen hundred vines on the hillsides of Paris's historic artistic district area and more than 3,000 grapevines with views of and within the Italian city. The Italian-based charitable organization is at the forefront of a movement re-establishing urban grape cultivation in historic wine-producing countries, but has identified them all over the globe, including urban centers in Japan, Bangladesh and Central Asia.

"Vineyards help cities stay greener and more diverse. These spaces protect land from construction by establishing long-term, yielding farming plots inside urban environments," says the organization's leader.

Similar to other vintages, those produced in cities are a product of the soils the plants thrive in, the unpredictability of the climate and the individuals who care for the grapes. "Each vintage embodies the charm, local spirit, environment and heritage of a urban center," notes the president.

Mystery Eastern European Variety

Back in 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 rain comes, then the pigeons may take advantage to attack again. "This is the enigmatic Polish grape," he says, as he cleans bruised and mouldy berries from the shimmering clusters. "The variety remains uncertain their exact classification, but they're definitely hardy. Unlike premium grapes – Pinot Noir, white wine grapes and additional renowned European varieties – you need not treat them with pesticides ... this is possibly a special variety that was developed by the Soviets."

Collective Efforts Throughout the City

Additional participants of the collective are also taking advantage of bright periods between showers of fall precipitation. On the terrace overlooking Bristol's shimmering harbour, where historic trading ships once floated with casks of vintage from Europe and the Iberian peninsula, Katy Grant is collecting her dark berries from about fifty plants. "I love the smell of these vines. It is so evocative," she says, pausing with a basket of grapes resting on her shoulder. "It recalls the fragrance of southern France when you open the car windows on vacation."

Grant, fifty-two, who has spent over two decades working for humanitarian organizations in conflict zones, unexpectedly inherited the vineyard when she moved back to the UK from Kenya with her family in recent years. She experienced an overwhelming duty to maintain the vines in the garden of their recently acquired property. "This plot has already endured multiple proprietors," she explains. "I really like the concept of environmental care – of handing this down to future caretakers so they can continue producing from this land."

Terraced Vineyards and Natural Winemaking

Nearby, the final two members of the collective are busily laboring on the precipitous slopes of the local river valley. One filmmaker has cultivated over 150 plants perched on ledges in her wild half-acre garden, which descends towards the muddy River Avon. "Visitors frequently express amazement," she notes, indicating the interwoven grape garden. "It's astonishing to them they are viewing grapevine lines in a city street."

Currently, Scofield, sixty, is picking clusters of dusty purple Rondo grapes from rows of plants arranged along the hillside with the help of her daughter, Luca. Scofield, a wildlife and conservation film-maker who has worked on Netflix's Great National Parks series and BBC Two's gardening shows, was inspired to plant grapes after seeing her neighbor's vines. She's discovered that hobbyists can produce interesting, enjoyable natural wine, which can command prices of more than seven pounds a serving in the increasing quantity of wine bars focusing on low-processing vintages. "It is incredibly satisfying that you can actually make good, natural wine," she states. "It is quite on trend, but in reality it's resurrecting an traditional method of producing vintage."

"When I tread the grapes, all the natural microorganisms are released from the surfaces into the liquid," explains the winemaker, partially submerged in a container of small branches, seeds and crimson juice. "That's how vintages were made traditionally, but commercial producers introduce sulphur [dioxide] to kill the wild yeast and then incorporate a commercially produced culture."

Difficult Conditions and Creative Approaches

In the immediate vicinity active senior Bob Reeve, who inspired Scofield to plant her grapevines, has assembled his companions to pick Chardonnay grapes from one hundred plants he has laid out neatly across two terraces. The former teacher, a Lancashire-born PE teacher who taught at Bristol University developed a passion for wine on annual sporting trips to France. However it is a difficult task to cultivate Chardonnay grapes in the dampness of the gorge, with cooling tides sweeping in and out from the Bristol Channel. "I wanted to make Burgundian wines in this location, which is somewhat ambitious," admits Reeve with a smile. "This variety is slow-maturing and very sensitive to mildew."

"My goal was creating Burgundian wines here, which is rather ambitious"

The unpredictable Bristol climate is not the sole problem encountered by winegrowers. The gardener has had to install a fence on