🔗 Share this article

Each 20 minutes or so, an older diesel-powered train arrives at a spray-painted station. Nearby, a police siren cuts through the almost continuous road noise. Commuters rush by falling apart, ivy-covered fencing panels as rain clouds gather.

This is perhaps 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 plump mauve berries on a sprawling garden plot situated between a line of historic homes and a commuter railway just north of the city downtown.

"I've noticed individuals concealing illegal substances or whatever in those bushes," says the grower. "But you simply continue ... and keep tending to your vines."

The cameraman, 46, a filmmaker who also has a fermented beverage company, is not the only urban winemaker. He has organized a loose collective of growers who produce vintage from several discreet city grape gardens tucked away in private yards and community plots throughout Bristol. The project is too clandestine to possess an official name so far, but the group's messaging chat is named Vineyard Dreams.

Urban Vineyards Around the Globe

So far, the grower's allotment is the only one listed in the Urban Vineyards Association's upcoming global directory, which includes better-known city vineyards such as the 1,800 vines on the hillsides of the French capital's renowned Montmartre area and more than 3,000 vines overlooking and within the Italian city. The Italian-based non-profit association is at the forefront of a movement reviving urban grape cultivation in historic wine-producing nations, but has discovered them all over the globe, including cities in East Asia, Bangladesh and Uzbekistan.

"Vineyards help urban areas remain greener and more diverse. They preserve land from development by establishing permanent, yielding farming plots inside cities," explains the organization's leader.

Like all wines, those produced in cities are a result of the soils the vines grow in, the unpredictability of the weather and the individuals who tend the fruit. "A bottle of wine represents the beauty, community, landscape and heritage of a urban center," adds the president.

Mystery Eastern European Variety

Returning to Bristol, Bayliss-Smith is in a race against time to gather the vines he cultivated from a plant abandoned in his allotment by a Eastern European household. If the rain arrives, then the birds may seize their chance to attack again. "This is the enigmatic Polish variety," he comments, as he removes damaged and mouldy berries from the shimmering bunches. "The variety remains uncertain their exact classification, but they're definitely hardy. Unlike noble varieties – Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and other famous French grapes – you need not spray them with pesticides ... this is possibly a special variety that was bred by the Eastern Bloc."

Collective Activities Across Bristol

Additional participants of the group are additionally making the most of sunny interludes between showers of autumn rain. On the terrace with views of Bristol's glistening waterfront, where medieval merchant vessels once bobbed with casks of vintage from Europe and Spain, Katy Grant is collecting her rondo grapes from about 50 plants. "I love the smell of the grapevines. The scent is so reminiscent," she says, pausing with a basket of fruit slung over her arm. "It recalls the fragrance of Provence when you open the car windows on holiday."

The humanitarian worker, 52, who has devoted more than 20 years working for charitable groups in conflict zones, inadvertently inherited the grape garden when she moved back to the UK from East Africa with her household in recent years. She felt an overwhelming duty to maintain the grapevines in the garden of their new home. "This plot has previously survived multiple proprietors," she explains. "I deeply appreciate the idea of environmental care – of handing this down to someone else so they can keep cultivating from the soil."

Terraced Vineyards and Natural Production

Nearby, the remaining cultivators of the group are hard at work on the precipitous slopes of Avon Gorge. One filmmaker has established more than 150 plants perched on terraces in her wild half-acre garden, which descends towards the silty local waterway. "Visitors frequently express amazement," she notes, gesturing towards the tangled grape garden. "They can't believe they can see rows of vines in a urban neighborhood."

Currently, the filmmaker, 60, is picking clusters of dusty purple Rondo grapes from rows of vines slung across the cliff-side with the help of her daughter, Luca. Scofield, a documentary producer who has contributed to streaming service's nature programming and BBC Two's gardening shows, was motivated to plant grapes after seeing her neighbor's vines. She's discovered that hobbyists can make intriguing, enjoyable natural wine, which can sell for upwards of £7 a glass in the growing number of wine bars focusing on low-processing vintages. "It is incredibly satisfying that you can truly create good, traditional vintage," she states. "It is quite on trend, but really it's reviving an traditional method of making wine."

"When I tread the grapes, the various wild yeasts are released from the skins into the liquid," says Scofield, ankle deep in a container of small branches, seeds and crimson juice. "That's how wines were historically produced, but commercial producers introduce sulphur [dioxide] to eliminate the wild yeast and subsequently incorporate a commercially produced culture."

Difficult Environments and Creative Approaches

A few doors down active senior another cultivator, who motivated Scofield to establish her grapevines, has assembled his companions to harvest white wine varieties from the 100 plants he has laid out neatly across multiple levels. Reeve, a northern English physical education instructor who taught at Bristol University developed a passion for viticulture on regular visits to France. But it is a challenge to grow Chardonnay grapes in the dampness of the valley, with cooling tides sweeping in and out from the Bristol Channel. "I wanted to produce Burgundian wines here, which is a bit bonkers," admits the retiree with amusement. "Chardonnay is slow-maturing and particularly vulnerable to fungal infections."

"I wanted to make European-style vintages here, which is rather ambitious"

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