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 rush by falling apart, ivy-covered fencing panels as rain clouds gather.
This is maybe the last place you expect to find a well-established grape-growing plot. But one local grower has cultivated 40 mature vines heavy with round purplish berries on a rambling garden plot situated between a row of 1930s houses and a local rail line just north of Bristol downtown.
"I've seen people concealing illegal substances or other items in those bushes," says the grower. "But you just get on with it ... and continue caring for your grapevines."
The cameraman, forty-six, a filmmaker who also has a fermented beverage company, is among several local vintner. He's organized a informal group of cultivators who make wine from several discreet urban vineyards nestled in private yards and allotments throughout Bristol. The project is sufficiently underground to have an official name so far, but the collective's WhatsApp group is called Vineyard Dreams.
City Vineyards Around the World
So far, 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 eighteen hundred vines on the hillsides of Paris's renowned Montmartre area and over 3,000 vines overlooking and within the Italian city. Based in Italy charitable organization is at the forefront of a initiative reviving city vineyards in historic wine-producing countries, but has discovered them all over the globe, including cities in Japan, Bangladesh and Uzbekistan.
"Grape gardens assist cities remain greener and ecologically varied. These spaces preserve land from development by establishing permanent, yielding farming plots inside urban environments," says the association's president.
Similar to other vintages, those produced in urban areas are a product of the soils the plants thrive in, the vagaries of the weather and the individuals who care for the grapes. "A bottle of wine represents the beauty, local spirit, environment and heritage of a city," adds the president.
Mystery Eastern European Variety
Returning to Bristol, the grower is in a urgent timeline to gather the grapevines he cultivated from a cutting abandoned in his garden by a Polish family. If the precipitation comes, then the birds may seize their chance to feast again. "This is the mystery Polish variety," he comments, as he cleans damaged and mouldy grapes from the glistering clusters. "The variety remains uncertain their exact classification, but they're definitely disease-resistant. In contrast to noble varieties – Burgundy grapes, Chardonnay and additional renowned French grapes – you don't have to spray them with chemicals ... this is possibly a unique cultivar that was developed by the Soviets."
Group Activities Throughout Bristol
The other members of the group are also making the most of bright periods between showers of autumn rain. At a rooftop garden overlooking Bristol's glistening waterfront, where historic trading ships once bobbed with barrels of wine from France and the Iberian peninsula, Katy Grant is harvesting her rondo grapes from about fifty plants. "I love the aroma of the grapevines. The scent is so reminiscent," she says, stopping with a basket of fruit slung over her arm. "It recalls the fragrance of southern France when you roll down the car windows on holiday."
Grant, 52, who has spent over 20 years working for humanitarian organizations in war-torn regions, inadvertently took over the grape garden when she returned to the UK from East Africa with her household in recent years. She experienced an strong responsibility to maintain the grapevines in the garden of their recently acquired property. "This vineyard has previously endured three different owners," she says. "I really like the concept of environmental care – of passing this on to future caretakers so they can continue producing from this land."
Sloping Gardens and Traditional Production
Nearby, the remaining cultivators of the group are hard at work on the steep inclines of the local river valley. Jo Scofield has cultivated more than 150 plants perched on ledges in her wild half-acre garden, which tumbles down towards the silty River Avon. "Visitors frequently express amazement," she says, indicating the tangled vineyard. "They can't believe they are viewing grapevine lines in a city street."
Currently, Scofield, sixty, is picking bunches of deep violet dark berries from lines of plants arranged along the hillside with the help 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 BBC Two's gardening shows, was motivated to plant grapes after observing her neighbor's grapevines. She has learned that hobbyists can produce interesting, pleasurable natural wine, which can command prices of more than seven pounds a glass in the growing number of establishments specialising in minimal-intervention vintages. "It's just incredibly satisfying that you can actually create quality, natural wine," she says. "It's very fashionable, but in reality it's reviving an old way of making wine."
"During foot-stomping the fruit, the various natural microorganisms are released from the surfaces and enter the liquid," explains Scofield, partially submerged in a bucket of tiny stems, pips and crimson juice. "This represents how vintages were made traditionally, but commercial producers introduce preservatives to kill the natural cultures and subsequently add a lab-grown culture."
Difficult Conditions and Inventive Approaches
A few doors down active senior Bob Reeve, who motivated his neighbor to plant her grapevines, has assembled his friends to pick Chardonnay grapes from one hundred vines he has arranged precisely across two terraces. Reeve, a northern English PE teacher who taught at Bristol University cultivated an interest in wine on regular visits to France. But it is a difficult task to cultivate Chardonnay grapes in the humidity of the valley, with cooling tides moving through from the Bristol Channel. "I aimed to make Burgundian wines in this location, which is a bit bonkers," says Reeve with amusement. "Chardonnay is late to ripen and particularly vulnerable to fungal infections."
"My goal was creating Burgundian wines in this environment, which is rather ambitious"
The unpredictable local weather is not the sole challenge encountered by grape cultivators. The gardener has had to erect a barrier on
