🔗 Share this article

Every quarter of an hour or so, an ageing diesel-powered railway carriage arrives at a graffiti-covered stop. Close by, a police siren cuts through the near-constant road noise. Daily travelers hurry past falling apart, ivy-draped garden fences as storm clouds gather.

This is perhaps the least likely spot you expect to find a well-established vineyard. But James Bayliss-Smith has managed to four dozen established plants sagging with round mauve berries on a sprawling allotment situated between a row of 1930s houses and a local rail line just north of the city town centre.

"I've noticed individuals hiding illegal substances or other items in the shrubbery," says the grower. "Yet you simply continue ... and continue caring for your grapevines."

The cameraman, 46, a filmmaker who also has a kombucha drinks business, is among several urban winemaker. He's pulled together a loose collective of cultivators who make wine from four discreet city grape gardens nestled in private yards and allotments throughout the city. It is sufficiently underground to possess an formal title yet, but the group's messaging chat is named Vineyard Dreams.

City Vineyards Across the Globe

To date, Bayliss-Smith's plot is the sole location registered in the City Vineyard Network's upcoming global directory, which features better-known city vineyards such as the 1,800 vines on the hillsides of Paris's historic Montmartre neighbourhood and over 3,000 vines overlooking and inside the Italian city. The Italian-based charitable organization is at the vanguard of a movement reviving city vineyards in traditional winemaking nations, but has discovered them throughout the globe, including cities in East Asia, Bangladesh and Central Asia.

"Grape gardens help cities remain more eco-friendly and more diverse. These spaces protect land from development by creating long-term, productive farming plots inside urban environments," says the organization's leader.

Similar to other vintages, those produced in urban areas are a result of the soils the vines thrive in, the vagaries of the climate and the people who care for the grapes. "Each vintage represents the charm, local spirit, environment and heritage of a urban center," adds the president.

Mystery Polish Grapes

Back in the city, the grower is in a urgent timeline to gather the vines he grew from a cutting left in his garden by a Eastern European household. Should the rain arrives, then the pigeons 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 what variety they are, but they're definitely disease-resistant. Unlike premium grapes – Pinot Noir, white wine grapes and additional renowned European varieties – you don't have to treat them with pesticides ... this could be a unique cultivar that was developed by the Soviets."

Collective Activities Across the City

Additional participants of the collective are additionally making the most of bright periods between bursts of fall precipitation. On the terrace overlooking the city's shimmering waterfront, where historic trading ships once floated with barrels of vintage from France and Spain, Katy Grant is harvesting her dark berries from approximately fifty vines. "I adore the smell of the grapevines. It is so evocative," she remarks, pausing with a container of grapes slung over her arm. "It recalls the fragrance of southern France when you roll down the car windows on vacation."

The humanitarian worker, 52, who has spent over 20 years working for humanitarian organizations in conflict zones, unexpectedly inherited the grape garden when she returned to the UK from Kenya with her family in recent years. She felt an overwhelming duty to maintain the grapevines in the yard of their new home. "This vineyard has already survived multiple proprietors," she explains. "I deeply appreciate the concept of natural stewardship – of passing this on to someone else so they can continue producing from the soil."

Sloping Gardens and Natural Winemaking

Nearby, the final two members of the collective are busily laboring on the precipitous slopes of Avon Gorge. One filmmaker has established more than one hundred fifty vines situated on ledges in her expansive property, which descends towards the muddy River Avon. "People are always surprised," she says, gesturing towards the interwoven vineyard. "They can't believe they can see rows of vines in a urban neighborhood."

Today, the filmmaker, sixty, is harvesting bunches of deep violet dark berries from lines of vines arranged along the cliff-side with the assistance of her child, her family member. The conservationist, a wildlife and conservation film-maker who has contributed to Netflix's Great National Parks series and television network's Gardeners' World, was inspired to cultivate vines after seeing her neighbor's grapevines. She's discovered that hobbyists can produce intriguing, pleasurable traditional vintage, which can command prices of upwards of seven pounds a serving in the increasing quantity of wine bars focusing on low-processing wines. "It's just deeply rewarding that you can truly make quality, natural wine," she states. "It is quite on trend, but really it's resurrecting an traditional method of producing wine."

"During foot-stomping the fruit, all the natural microorganisms come off the skins and enter the liquid," explains the winemaker, partially submerged in a container of small branches, pips and crimson juice. "That's how vintages were made traditionally, but industrial wineries add preservatives to kill the wild yeast and subsequently add a commercially produced culture."

Challenging Environments and Creative Solutions

In the immediate vicinity active senior Bob Reeve, who inspired his neighbor to establish her vines, has assembled his friends to pick white wine varieties from the 100 plants he has laid out neatly across multiple levels. Reeve, a northern English PE teacher who worked at Bristol University developed a passion for wine on annual sporting trips to Europe. But it is a difficult task to grow Chardonnay grapes in the humidity of the valley, with cooling tides sweeping in and out from the nearby estuary. "I aimed to produce Burgundian wines in this location, which is a bit bonkers," says Reeve with a smile. "This variety is slow-maturing and particularly vulnerable to fungal infections."

"My goal was creating European-style vintages here, which is rather ambitious"

The unpredictable local weather is not the only problem faced by grape cultivators. Reeve has had to erect a barrier on