🔗 Share this article

Every quarter of an hour or so, an older diesel train pulls into a spray-painted station. Close by, a law enforcement alarm cuts through the near-constant traffic drone. Daily travelers hurry past collapsing, ivy-draped fencing panels as rain clouds gather.

It is maybe the last place you anticipate to find a well-established grape-growing plot. But one local grower has managed to 40 mature vines heavy with round mauve berries on a rambling allotment situated between a row of 1930s houses and a commuter railway just north of the city downtown.

"I've noticed individuals hiding heroin or other items in the shrubbery," says the grower. "But you simply continue ... and keep tending to your grapevines."

Bayliss-Smith, 46, a documentary cameraman who runs a fermented beverage company, is not the only local vintner. He has pulled together a loose collective of cultivators who make vintage from several hidden urban vineyards tucked away in private yards and allotments throughout the city. It is sufficiently underground to possess an formal title so far, but the group's messaging chat is called Grape Expectations.

City Wine Gardens Around the Globe

To date, Bayliss-Smith'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 1,800 plants on the slopes of the French capital's renowned artistic district neighbourhood and over three thousand vines overlooking and within Turin. Based in Italy non-profit association is at the forefront of a movement re-establishing city vineyards in historic wine-producing nations, but has discovered them throughout the world, including cities in East Asia, Bangladesh and Central Asia.

"Vineyards assist urban areas stay more eco-friendly and ecologically varied. These spaces protect land from development by creating long-term, yielding farming plots inside cities," explains the organization's leader.

Similar to other vintages, those created in urban areas are a result of the soils the vines thrive in, the vagaries of the weather and the people who tend the grapes. "A bottle of wine embodies the beauty, local spirit, environment and history of a urban center," notes the spokesperson.

Mystery Eastern European Variety

Back in Bristol, Bayliss-Smith is in a urgent timeline to harvest the vines he cultivated from a cutting abandoned in his allotment by a Polish family. Should the rain comes, then the pigeons may seize their chance to feast once more. "This is the enigmatic Eastern European variety," he says, as he removes bruised and rotten grapes from the shimmering clusters. "We don't really know their exact classification, but they're definitely hardy. In contrast to premium grapes – Pinot Noir, white wine grapes and other famous French grapes – you need not treat them with pesticides ... this is possibly a unique cultivar that was developed by the Eastern Bloc."

Group Activities Throughout the City

The other members of the collective are also making the most of sunny interludes between showers of fall precipitation. On the terrace overlooking the city's shimmering waterfront, where historic trading ships once bobbed with casks of vintage from France and Spain, Katy Grant is harvesting her dark berries from about 50 plants. "I love the aroma of the grapevines. The scent is so reminiscent," she says, stopping with a container of fruit resting on her shoulder. "It recalls the fragrance of southern France when you open the car windows on vacation."

The humanitarian worker, 52, who has spent over two decades working for humanitarian organizations in conflict zones, unexpectedly inherited the vineyard when she returned 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 recently acquired property. "This plot has already endured three different owners," she explains. "I deeply appreciate the concept of environmental care – of handing this down to future caretakers so they can continue producing from the soil."

Sloping Vineyards and Traditional Winemaking

Nearby, the final two members of the group are hard at work on the precipitous slopes of the local river valley. Jo Scofield has established more than one hundred fifty vines situated on ledges in her expansive property, which descends towards the muddy local waterway. "Visitors frequently express amazement," she says, indicating the interwoven grape garden. "It's astonishing to them they are viewing grapevine lines in a urban neighborhood."

Today, Scofield, sixty, is harvesting bunches of deep violet dark berries from rows of vines slung across the hillside with the assistance of her daughter, her family member. The conservationist, a documentary producer who has worked on streaming service's nature programming and television network's gardening shows, was motivated to cultivate vines after observing her neighbour's grapevines. She has learned that hobbyists can make interesting, enjoyable traditional vintage, which can sell for more than seven pounds a glass in the growing number of wine bars specialising in low-processing wines. "It's just deeply rewarding that you can truly make quality, natural wine," she says. "It is quite on trend, but really it's resurrecting an traditional method of producing vintage."

"During foot-stomping the fruit, all the natural microorganisms come off the surfaces and enter the liquid," explains Scofield, partially submerged in a container of tiny stems, pips and red liquid. "That's how vintages were made traditionally, but commercial producers introduce preservatives to eliminate the natural cultures and subsequently incorporate a lab-grown yeast."

Difficult Conditions and Inventive Solutions

A few doors down sprightly retiree Bob Reeve, who inspired Scofield to establish her vines, has assembled his companions to pick Chardonnay grapes from the 100 vines he has laid out neatly across two terraces. Reeve, a Lancashire-born PE teacher who worked at the local university cultivated an interest in wine on annual sporting trips to France. However it is a difficult task to grow Chardonnay grapes in the humidity of the gorge, with temperature fluctuations sweeping in and out from the Bristol Channel. "I wanted to make Burgundian wines in this location, which is somewhat ambitious," says Reeve with amusement. "This variety is late to ripen and very sensitive to fungal infections."

"My goal was creating European-style vintages here, which is a bit bonkers"

The temperamental Bristol climate is not the sole problem faced by winegrowers. Reeve has had to erect a barrier on