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

Each 20 minutes or so, an older diesel-powered train arrives at a spray-painted station. Nearby, a police siren cuts through the almost continuous road noise. Commuters hurry past falling apart, ivy-draped fencing panels as rain clouds form.

This is maybe the last place you anticipate to find a perfectly formed grape-growing plot. However James Bayliss-Smith has cultivated four dozen established plants heavy with round mauve berries on a rambling allotment sandwiched between a row of historic homes and a commuter railway just above Bristol town centre.

"I've seen people hiding illegal substances or other items in the shrubbery," states Bayliss-Smith. "Yet you simply continue ... and continue caring for your vines."

Bayliss-Smith, 46, a filmmaker who runs a kombucha drinks business, is not the only local vintner. He's organized a loose collective of cultivators who make wine from several discreet city grape gardens tucked away in private yards and allotments across the city. It is sufficiently underground to have an official name yet, but the collective's messaging chat is named Grape Expectations.

City Vineyards Around the Globe

So far, the grower's allotment is the sole location registered in the Urban Vineyards Association's forthcoming global directory, which includes better-known city vineyards such as the 1,800 vines on the hillsides of the French capital's renowned artistic district area and over three thousand grapevines with views of and inside the Italian city. The Italian-based charitable organization is at the vanguard of a movement reviving urban grape cultivation in historic wine-producing nations, but has identified them throughout the world, including cities in Japan, Bangladesh and Central Asia.

"Grape gardens assist urban areas stay greener and more diverse. These spaces protect open space from development by establishing permanent, productive farming plots inside cities," explains the organization's leader.

Like all wines, those created in cities are a product of the earth the vines grow in, the unpredictability of the climate and the individuals who care for the grapes. "A bottle of wine represents the charm, community, landscape and history of a urban center," notes the spokesperson.

Mystery Polish Grapes

Back in the city, Bayliss-Smith is in a race against time to gather the grapevines he grew from a plant abandoned in his garden by a Eastern European household. Should the precipitation comes, then the birds may take advantage to attack once more. "This is the enigmatic Polish variety," he comments, as he cleans damaged and mouldy grapes from the shimmering clusters. "We don't really know what variety they are, but they're definitely hardy. Unlike premium grapes – Burgundy grapes, white wine grapes and other famous French grapes – you need not treat them with chemicals ... this could be a special variety that was developed by the Soviets."

Collective Activities Across the City

Additional participants of the collective are also taking advantage of sunny interludes between showers of autumn rain. On the terrace with views of Bristol's shimmering harbour, where medieval merchant vessels once bobbed with casks of vintage from France and Spain, Katy Grant is collecting her dark berries from approximately fifty vines. "I love the aroma of the grapevines. The scent is so evocative," she remarks, pausing with a basket of grapes slung over her shoulder. "It's the scent of southern France when you open the car windows on holiday."

Grant, fifty-two, who has spent over 20 years working for humanitarian organizations in conflict zones, unexpectedly took over the grape garden when she moved back to the United Kingdom from Kenya with her household in 2018. She felt an overwhelming duty to maintain the vines in the garden of their recently acquired property. "This vineyard has previously endured three different owners," she says. "I deeply appreciate the concept of natural stewardship – of passing this on to future caretakers so they can continue producing from the soil."

Sloping Gardens and Natural Production

Nearby, the remaining cultivators of the group are busily laboring on the precipitous slopes of Avon Gorge. One filmmaker has cultivated over one hundred fifty plants perched on ledges in her expansive property, which tumbles down towards the silty local waterway. "Visitors frequently express amazement," she notes, indicating the interwoven grape garden. "It's astonishing to them they can see grapevine lines in a city street."

Currently, the filmmaker, sixty, is picking clusters of deep violet dark berries from rows of vines arranged along the hillside with the assistance of her daughter, her family member. Scofield, a documentary producer who has contributed to Netflix's nature programming and television network's Gardeners' World, was inspired to cultivate vines after seeing her neighbor's grapevines. She's discovered that hobbyists can make interesting, enjoyable natural wine, which can command prices of upwards of seven pounds a glass in the growing number of wine bars focusing on low-processing vintages. "It is incredibly satisfying that you can truly make good, natural wine," she says. "It is quite fashionable, but really it's reviving an old way of producing vintage."

"During foot-stomping the fruit, all the natural microorganisms come off the skins and enter the juice," says the winemaker, partially submerged in a bucket of tiny stems, pips and crimson juice. "This represents how vintages were historically produced, but commercial producers add preservatives to kill the natural cultures and then add a commercially produced yeast."

Difficult Conditions and Inventive Approaches

A few doors down active senior another cultivator, who inspired his neighbor to establish her vines, has gathered his friends to pick white wine varieties from the 100 vines he has arranged precisely across two terraces. The former teacher, a northern English physical education instructor who worked at the local university developed a passion for viticulture on regular visits to Europe. But it is a difficult task to cultivate Chardonnay grapes in the dampness of the valley, with temperature fluctuations sweeping in and out from the Bristol Channel. "I aimed to make Burgundian wines in this location, which is somewhat ambitious," admits the retiree with amusement. "Chardonnay is slow-maturing and particularly vulnerable to fungal infections."

"My goal was creating Burgundian wines here, which is a bit bonkers"

The temperamental local weather is not the only challenge faced by grape cultivators. The gardener has been compelled to erect a fence on