Every 20 minutes or so, an ageing diesel train arrives at a graffiti-covered stop. Close by, a law enforcement alarm pierces the almost continuous road noise. Commuters hurry past falling apart, ivy-draped garden fences as storm clouds gather.
It is perhaps the least likely spot you expect to find a perfectly formed vineyard. But one local grower has managed to four dozen established plants heavy with plump mauve berries on a sprawling allotment situated between a row of historic homes and a local rail line just above the city downtown.
"I've seen individuals concealing illegal substances or whatever in the shrubbery," states Bayliss-Smith. "Yet you simply continue ... and keep tending to your vines."
Bayliss-Smith, 46, a filmmaker who also has a kombucha drinks business, is among several local vintner. He's pulled together a loose collective of cultivators who make vintage from several hidden urban vineyards tucked away in private yards and allotments across the city. It is too clandestine to possess an official name yet, but the group's WhatsApp group is named Vineyard Dreams.
Urban Wine Gardens Across the World
So far, Bayliss-Smith's allotment is the only one registered in the Urban Vineyards Association's forthcoming world atlas, which features better-known city vineyards such as the 1,800 plants on the slopes of the French capital's renowned artistic district neighbourhood and more than 3,000 vines with views of and within Turin. The Italian-based non-profit association is at the forefront of a movement reviving urban grape cultivation in traditional winemaking countries, but has identified them throughout the globe, including urban centers in Japan, South Asia and Uzbekistan.
"Grape gardens help cities stay more eco-friendly and ecologically varied. They protect open space from development by creating permanent, productive farming plots inside urban environments," explains the organization's leader.
Like all wines, those produced in urban areas are a result of the soils the vines thrive in, the vagaries of the climate and the people who tend the grapes. "A bottle of wine represents the charm, local spirit, environment and history of a city," adds the president.
Unknown Eastern European Variety
Back in Bristol, the grower is in a urgent timeline to gather the vines he grew from a cutting left in his allotment by a Polish family. Should the precipitation comes, then the pigeons may seize their chance to feast once more. "This is the mystery Eastern European variety," he comments, as he cleans bruised and rotten grapes from the glistering bunches. "The variety remains uncertain their exact classification, but they are certainly hardy. Unlike noble varieties – Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and additional renowned French grapes – you don't have to spray them with pesticides ... this could be a unique cultivar that was developed by the Eastern Bloc."
Collective Efforts Throughout Bristol
Additional participants of the group are also making the most of sunny interludes between showers of autumn rain. At a rooftop garden with views of the city's glistening waterfront, where historic trading ships once bobbed with casks of vintage from Europe and Spain, Katy Grant is harvesting her dark berries from about fifty vines. "I adore the smell of these vines. The scent is so reminiscent," she remarks, stopping with a container of fruit slung over her shoulder. "It's the scent of Provence when you roll down the car windows on holiday."
Grant, fifty-two, who has devoted more than two decades working for humanitarian organizations in war-torn regions, inadvertently inherited the vineyard when she moved back to the UK from East Africa with her family in 2018. She experienced an overwhelming duty to look after the vines in the garden of their new home. "This plot has previously endured multiple proprietors," she explains. "I deeply appreciate the idea of environmental care – of handing this down to someone else so they keep cultivating from this land."
Terraced Gardens 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 established more than one hundred fifty plants perched on terraces in her expansive property, which descends towards the silty local waterway. "Visitors frequently express amazement," she notes, gesturing towards the tangled grape garden. "It's astonishing to them they are viewing rows of vines in a city street."
Today, Scofield, 60, is harvesting bunches of dusty purple dark berries from rows of vines arranged along the cliff-side with the help of her child, Luca. Scofield, a wildlife and conservation film-maker who has contributed to Netflix's Great National Parks series and television network's gardening shows, was motivated to cultivate vines after observing her neighbour's vines. She's discovered that hobbyists can make intriguing, pleasurable natural wine, which can sell for upwards of £7 a glass in the growing number of establishments focusing on minimal-intervention vintages. "It is incredibly satisfying that you can truly make good, natural wine," she states. "It is quite fashionable, but in reality it's resurrecting an old way of producing wine."
"When I tread the fruit, the various natural microorganisms come off the skins and enter the liquid," says the winemaker, partially submerged in a container of tiny stems, pips and crimson juice. "This represents how vintages were historically produced, but commercial producers introduce sulphur [dioxide] to eliminate the natural cultures and subsequently incorporate a commercially produced yeast."
Difficult Environments and Creative Approaches
In the immediate vicinity sprightly retiree Bob Reeve, who motivated his neighbor to establish her grapevines, has assembled his companions to pick Chardonnay grapes from the 100 plants he has arranged precisely across multiple levels. The former teacher, a Lancashire-born PE teacher who worked at the local university developed a passion for wine on regular visits to Europe. However it is a challenge to cultivate this particular variety in the dampness of the valley, with temperature fluctuations moving through from the Bristol Channel. "I wanted to produce French-style vintages in this location, which is a bit bonkers," admits Reeve with a smile. "Chardonnay is slow-maturing and particularly vulnerable to fungal infections."
"My goal was creating European-style vintages in this environment, which is a bit bonkers"
The temperamental Bristol climate is not the sole challenge encountered by grape cultivators. The gardener has had to erect a fence on
