Bristol's Garden Vineyards: Foot-Stomping Grapes in City Gardens

Every 20 minutes or so, an older diesel railway carriage arrives at a graffiti-covered stop. Close by, a law enforcement alarm pierces the almost continuous road noise. Commuters hurry past falling apart, ivy-covered fencing panels as storm clouds gather.

It is perhaps the last place you expect to find a perfectly formed vineyard. But James Bayliss-Smith has cultivated four dozen established plants sagging with round purplish grapes on a rambling garden plot situated between a row of historic homes and a local rail line just above Bristol downtown.

"I've noticed people hiding illegal substances or whatever in those bushes," states Bayliss-Smith. "But you just get on with it ... and keep tending to your grapevines."

Bayliss-Smith, forty-six, a documentary cameraman who also has a fermented beverage company, is among several urban winemaker. He has organized a informal group of growers who make wine from four discreet city grape gardens nestled in back gardens and community plots across Bristol. It is sufficiently underground to have an official name so far, but the group's WhatsApp group is named Vineyard Dreams.

City Vineyards Across the World

To date, Bayliss-Smith's plot is the only one listed in the City Vineyard Network's upcoming global directory, which includes more famous city vineyards such as the 1,800 plants on the hillsides of the French capital's historic artistic district area and over 3,000 grapevines with views of and inside the Italian city. The Italian-based non-profit association is at the vanguard of a movement reviving city vineyards in traditional winemaking countries, but has discovered them all over the globe, including urban centers in Japan, South Asia and Uzbekistan.

"Vineyards assist cities remain greener and ecologically varied. They protect open space from development by creating permanent, yielding agricultural units inside cities," says the association's president.

Like all wines, those created in urban areas are a product of the soils the plants grow in, the vagaries of the weather and the individuals who tend the grapes. "Each vintage embodies the charm, local spirit, landscape and history of a city," notes the president.

Mystery Eastern European Variety

Back in the city, the grower is in a urgent timeline to gather the grapevines he cultivated from a cutting left in his garden by a Polish family. If the rain comes, then the pigeons may seize their chance to attack once more. "Here we have the mystery Polish grape," he says, as he cleans damaged and mouldy grapes from the glistering bunches. "The variety remains uncertain their exact classification, but they're definitely disease-resistant. In contrast to premium grapes – Burgundy grapes, white wine grapes and other famous French grapes – you don't have to spray them with pesticides ... this is possibly a unique cultivar that was developed by the Soviets."

Group Efforts Throughout the City

Additional participants of the collective are additionally taking advantage of bright periods between showers of autumn rain. At a rooftop garden with views of Bristol's shimmering waterfront, where medieval merchant vessels once floated with barrels of wine from Europe and Spain, one cultivator is collecting her rondo grapes from approximately fifty plants. "I love the aroma of these vines. The scent is so reminiscent," she says, stopping with a container of grapes resting on her shoulder. "It's the scent of southern France when you roll down the car windows on vacation."

Grant, fifty-two, who has devoted more than 20 years working for charitable groups in conflict zones, unexpectedly took over the grape garden when she returned to the United Kingdom from Kenya with her household in recent years. She felt an strong responsibility to maintain the grapevines in the yard of their new home. "This plot has previously survived multiple proprietors," she says. "I deeply appreciate the concept of natural stewardship – of handing this down to someone else so they continue producing from this land."

Sloping Gardens and Natural Production

A short walk away, the final two members of the group are hard at work on the precipitous slopes of the local river valley. Jo Scofield has established over 150 vines situated on terraces in her expansive property, which tumbles down towards the silty River Avon. "People are always surprised," she notes, gesturing towards the tangled grape garden. "They can't believe they are viewing rows of vines in a urban neighborhood."

Today, the filmmaker, sixty, is picking bunches of deep violet dark berries from rows of plants slung across the hillside with the help of her daughter, Luca. The conservationist, a wildlife and conservation film-maker who has worked on streaming service's Great National Parks series and BBC Two's Gardeners' World, was motivated to cultivate vines after observing her neighbor's grapevines. She has learned that hobbyists can produce interesting, pleasurable traditional vintage, which can command prices of upwards of £7 a glass in the growing number of wine bars focusing on minimal-intervention vintages. "It is incredibly satisfying that you can actually create quality, traditional vintage," she states. "It is quite on trend, but in reality it's resurrecting an old way of producing vintage."

"During foot-stomping the grapes, all the wild yeasts are released from the skins into the juice," says Scofield, partially submerged in a bucket of tiny stems, pips and crimson juice. "That's how vintages were made traditionally, but commercial producers introduce sulphur [dioxide] to eliminate the natural cultures and then incorporate a commercially produced yeast."

Difficult Environments and Inventive Approaches

In the immediate vicinity active senior Bob Reeve, who motivated Scofield to plant her vines, has assembled his companions to harvest Chardonnay grapes from one hundred vines he has laid out neatly across multiple levels. Reeve, a Lancashire-born physical education instructor who taught at Bristol University developed a passion for viticulture on annual sporting trips to Europe. However 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 aimed to make Burgundian wines in this location, which is somewhat ambitious," says the retiree with amusement. "Chardonnay is late to ripen and very sensitive to fungal infections."

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

The temperamental Bristol climate is not the only challenge faced by grape cultivators. Reeve has been compelled to install a barrier on