The City of Bristol's Backyard Vineyards: Foot-Stomping Fruit in Urban Spaces

Each quarter of an hour or so, an older diesel train pulls into a graffiti-covered stop. Close by, a police siren cuts through the almost continuous road noise. Daily travelers rush by collapsing, ivy-draped garden fences as storm clouds gather.

It is maybe the least likely spot you anticipate to find a perfectly formed grape-growing plot. However James Bayliss-Smith has cultivated four dozen established plants sagging with round purplish grapes on a rambling garden plot sandwiched between a row of 1930s houses and a local rail line just above Bristol downtown.

"I've noticed people concealing illegal substances or other items in the shrubbery," says the grower. "But you just get on with it ... and continue caring for your grapevines."

The cameraman, 46, a filmmaker who also has a fermented beverage company, is among several local vintner. He has organized a loose collective of growers who make vintage from four discreet city grape gardens tucked away in back gardens and allotments throughout the city. The project is too clandestine to possess an official name yet, but the group's WhatsApp group is called Vineyard Dreams.

City Vineyards Across the World

So far, Bayliss-Smith's allotment is the sole location listed in the Urban Vineyards Association's upcoming world atlas, which includes more famous urban wineries such as the 1,800 vines on the hillsides of the French capital's historic artistic district area and more than 3,000 vines with views of and inside the Italian city. Based in Italy non-profit association is at the vanguard of a movement re-establishing city vineyards in traditional winemaking nations, but has identified them all over the world, including cities in East Asia, South Asia and Uzbekistan.

"Grape gardens help urban areas remain greener and more diverse. They preserve land from construction by establishing long-term, productive agricultural units within urban environments," explains the organization's leader.

Like all wines, those created in cities are a result of the soils the plants grow in, the unpredictability of the weather and the people who tend the fruit. "A bottle of wine represents the charm, local spirit, landscape and heritage of a city," adds the president.

Mystery Polish Grapes

Returning to the city, Bayliss-Smith is in a race against time to harvest the grapevines he cultivated from a cutting left in his garden by a Eastern European household. Should the rain comes, then the birds may take advantage to feast once more. "This is the mystery Polish variety," he says, as he cleans bruised and mouldy grapes from the glistering bunches. "The variety remains uncertain their exact classification, but they're definitely disease-resistant. Unlike premium grapes – Burgundy grapes, white wine grapes and additional renowned European varieties – you don't have to spray them with chemicals ... this could be a unique cultivar that was developed by the Eastern Bloc."

Collective Efforts Throughout Bristol

The other members of the group are also making the most of bright periods between showers of fall precipitation. On the terrace overlooking Bristol's glistening waterfront, where historic trading ships once bobbed with barrels of vintage from Europe and the Iberian peninsula, one cultivator is harvesting her rondo grapes from approximately fifty vines. "I love the aroma of the grapevines. The scent is so reminiscent," she remarks, pausing with a basket of grapes slung over her shoulder. "It's the scent of southern France when you open the vehicle windows on vacation."

Grant, 52, who has spent over 20 years working for charitable groups in war-torn regions, inadvertently took over the vineyard when she returned to the UK from East Africa with her household in recent years. She felt an overwhelming duty to look after the vines in the garden of their recently acquired property. "This plot has previously survived three different owners," she says. "I really like the idea of environmental care – of passing this on to someone else so they can continue producing from the soil."

Terraced Gardens and Natural Winemaking

A short walk away, the remaining cultivators of the group are hard at work on the steep inclines of the local river valley. Jo Scofield has cultivated over one hundred fifty plants perched on ledges in her wild half-acre garden, which descends towards the muddy River Avon. "People are always surprised," she says, indicating the tangled grape garden. "It's astonishing to them they are viewing grapevine lines in a urban neighborhood."

Today, Scofield, sixty, is picking bunches of deep violet Rondo grapes from rows of vines slung across the hillside with the assistance of her child, Luca. Scofield, a wildlife and conservation film-maker who has contributed to Netflix's nature programming and television network's gardening shows, was motivated to plant grapes after observing her neighbour's vines. She's discovered that amateurs can make intriguing, pleasurable traditional vintage, which can sell for more than seven pounds a glass in the increasing quantity of wine bars specialising in minimal-intervention wines. "It is incredibly satisfying that you can truly make good, traditional vintage," she says. "It's very fashionable, but really it's reviving an old way of producing vintage."

"During foot-stomping the grapes, the various natural microorganisms come off the surfaces and enter the juice," explains the winemaker, ankle deep in a bucket of small branches, seeds and crimson juice. "That's how vintages were historically produced, but commercial producers add sulphur [dioxide] to kill the wild yeast and then add a lab-grown culture."

Challenging Environments and Creative Approaches

In the immediate vicinity active senior another cultivator, who motivated Scofield to establish her grapevines, has assembled his friends to harvest white wine varieties from one hundred vines he has arranged precisely across multiple levels. Reeve, a Lancashire-born PE teacher who worked at Bristol University developed a passion for viticulture on annual sporting trips to France. However it is a challenge to cultivate Chardonnay grapes in the dampness of the gorge, with cooling tides moving through from the Bristol Channel. "I aimed to produce French-style vintages in this location, which is a bit bonkers," says Reeve with amusement. "Chardonnay is slow-maturing and particularly vulnerable to mildew."

"My goal was creating Burgundian wines here, which is rather ambitious"

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