🔗 Share this article

Each 20 minutes or so, an older diesel train pulls into a graffiti-covered station. Nearby, a law enforcement alarm cuts through the almost continuous road noise. Daily travelers hurry past collapsing, ivy-draped garden fences as rain clouds gather.

This is maybe the least likely spot you expect to find a well-established vineyard. However one local grower has managed to 40 mature vines heavy with round mauve grapes on a sprawling allotment sandwiched between a line of 1930s houses and a commuter railway just north of Bristol town centre.

"I've noticed people hiding illegal substances or whatever in those bushes," says Bayliss-Smith. "Yet you just get on with it ... and keep tending to your grapevines."

Bayliss-Smith, 46, a documentary cameraman who also has a kombucha drinks business, is among several local vintner. He's pulled together a loose collective of growers who produce vintage from four discreet city grape gardens tucked away in private yards and allotments throughout the city. The project is too clandestine to have an formal title yet, but the group's WhatsApp group is called Vineyard Dreams.

Urban Wine Gardens Across the Globe

To date, the grower's allotment is the only one registered in the City Vineyard Network's upcoming global directory, which includes more famous urban wineries such as the 1,800 vines on the hillsides of Paris's historic artistic district neighbourhood and over 3,000 vines with views of and within Turin. The Italian-based non-profit association is at the vanguard of a initiative reviving urban grape cultivation in traditional winemaking nations, but has identified them throughout the world, including urban centers in East Asia, Bangladesh and Uzbekistan.

"Vineyards assist urban areas stay more eco-friendly and more diverse. They preserve land from development by creating permanent, productive agricultural units inside urban environments," says the organization's leader.

Like all wines, those produced in cities are a product of the earth the plants grow in, the vagaries of the climate and the people who tend the fruit. "Each vintage represents the beauty, local spirit, landscape and history of a city," notes the spokesperson.

Unknown Eastern European Variety

Back in the city, Bayliss-Smith is in a urgent timeline to harvest the grapevines he cultivated from a cutting abandoned in his allotment by a Polish family. If the rain comes, then the birds may seize their chance to attack again. "This is the mystery Polish variety," he says, as he cleans bruised and rotten grapes from the shimmering clusters. "The variety remains uncertain their exact classification, but they are certainly disease-resistant. In contrast to premium grapes – Burgundy grapes, Chardonnay and additional renowned French grapes – you need not spray them with pesticides ... this is possibly a special variety that was developed by the Soviets."

Collective Efforts Across Bristol

The other members of the group are additionally taking advantage of bright periods between bursts of autumn rain. At a rooftop garden with views of Bristol's shimmering waterfront, where historic trading ships once floated with casks of wine from France and the Iberian peninsula, one cultivator is collecting her dark berries from approximately fifty plants. "I love the smell of these vines. The scent is so evocative," she remarks, pausing with a basket of fruit resting on her shoulder. "It's the scent of southern France when you roll down the vehicle windows on vacation."

The humanitarian worker, 52, who has devoted more than two decades working for charitable groups in conflict zones, unexpectedly inherited the vineyard when she returned to the United Kingdom from East Africa with her family in recent years. She experienced an overwhelming duty to maintain the grapevines in the yard of their recently acquired property. "This vineyard has already survived multiple proprietors," she says. "I really like the idea of natural stewardship – of passing this on to someone else so they keep cultivating from the soil."

Terraced Gardens and Natural Production

A short walk away, the remaining cultivators of the group are hard at work on the steep inclines of Avon Gorge. One filmmaker has cultivated over 150 vines perched on terraces in her expansive property, which descends towards the silty local waterway. "People are always surprised," she notes, gesturing towards the interwoven vineyard. "They can't believe they can see rows of vines in a city street."

Currently, the filmmaker, sixty, is harvesting clusters of dusty purple dark berries from lines of plants slung across the hillside with the help of her daughter, Luca. The conservationist, a wildlife and conservation film-maker who has worked on streaming service's nature programming and television network's Gardeners' World, was inspired to cultivate vines after seeing her neighbour's grapevines. She's discovered that hobbyists can make intriguing, enjoyable traditional vintage, which can command prices of more than £7 a glass in the growing number of wine bars focusing on low-processing wines. "It is incredibly satisfying that you can truly create quality, natural wine," she states. "It is quite fashionable, but in reality it's reviving an old way of making wine."

"During foot-stomping the grapes, the various natural microorganisms are released from the skins and enter the juice," explains the winemaker, ankle deep in a bucket of tiny stems, pips and crimson juice. "This represents how vintages were historically produced, but industrial wineries introduce preservatives to eliminate the natural cultures and subsequently add a commercially produced yeast."

Challenging Conditions and Creative Approaches

In the immediate vicinity sprightly retiree another cultivator, who motivated his neighbor to plant her vines, has assembled his friends to harvest Chardonnay grapes from one hundred vines he has arranged precisely across two terraces. Reeve, a Lancashire-born PE teacher who worked at Bristol University cultivated an interest in wine on regular visits to Europe. However it is a challenge to grow Chardonnay grapes in the humidity of the gorge, with temperature fluctuations sweeping in and out from the nearby estuary. "I wanted to produce Burgundian wines in this location, which is somewhat ambitious," admits Reeve with a smile. "Chardonnay is slow-maturing and particularly vulnerable to mildew."

"My goal was creating Burgundian wines in this environment, which is a bit bonkers"

The unpredictable Bristol climate is not the sole challenge faced by grape cultivators. The gardener has had to install a barrier on