🔗 Share this article

Each quarter of an hour or so, an ageing diesel-powered railway carriage arrives at a spray-painted station. Close by, a law enforcement alarm pierces the near-constant traffic drone. Commuters rush by falling apart, ivy-draped fencing panels as rain clouds gather.

This is perhaps the last place you expect to find a perfectly formed vineyard. However James Bayliss-Smith has managed to four dozen established plants heavy with round purplish grapes on a sprawling allotment situated between a line of historic homes and a local rail line just above the city downtown.

"I've seen people hiding heroin or other items in the shrubbery," says Bayliss-Smith. "Yet you simply continue ... and continue caring for your grapevines."

Bayliss-Smith, forty-six, a filmmaker who also has a kombucha drinks business, is among several local vintner. He has organized a informal group of growers who produce vintage from several discreet urban vineyards tucked away in private yards and community plots across 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 World

So far, the grower's plot is the only one registered in the City Vineyard Network's upcoming global directory, which features better-known city vineyards such as the 1,800 plants on the hillsides of Paris's renowned Montmartre area and more than three thousand grapevines overlooking and inside Turin. The Italian-based non-profit association is at the forefront of a movement reviving city vineyards in historic wine-producing nations, but has discovered them all over the globe, including urban centers in East Asia, Bangladesh and Uzbekistan.

"Vineyards assist cities stay greener and more diverse. They protect land from construction by creating long-term, productive agricultural units within cities," says the association's president.

Similar to other vintages, those created in cities are a result of the soils the plants thrive in, the unpredictability of the climate and the individuals who tend the grapes. "Each vintage embodies the charm, community, environment and heritage of a city," adds the president.

Unknown Polish Variety

Returning to the city, the grower is in a race against time to gather the vines he cultivated from a cutting abandoned in his allotment by a Polish family. Should the rain comes, then the pigeons may seize their chance to attack again. "Here we have the enigmatic Polish variety," he comments, as he cleans damaged and mouldy berries from the shimmering bunches. "We don't really know what variety they are, but they are certainly hardy. In contrast to premium grapes – Burgundy grapes, white wine grapes and other famous French grapes – you don't have to treat them with pesticides ... this is possibly a special variety that was bred by the Soviets."

Group Efforts Throughout the City

The other members of the group are also taking advantage of bright periods between showers of autumn rain. At a rooftop garden with views of the city's glistening harbour, where historic trading ships once floated with barrels of wine from Europe and the Iberian peninsula, Katy Grant is harvesting her rondo grapes from about 50 vines. "I adore the aroma of the grapevines. It is so reminiscent," she remarks, stopping with a container of grapes resting on her arm. "It recalls the fragrance of Provence when you roll down the vehicle windows on holiday."

The humanitarian worker, fifty-two, who has spent over two decades working for humanitarian organizations in war-torn regions, inadvertently took over the grape garden when she moved back to the UK from East Africa with her household in recent years. She felt an strong responsibility to maintain the grapevines in the yard of their new home. "This vineyard has previously endured multiple proprietors," she says. "I deeply appreciate the concept of environmental care – of passing this on to someone else so they can continue producing from this land."

Terraced Vineyards and Traditional Production

Nearby, the final two members of the group are hard at work on the precipitous slopes of the local river valley. Jo Scofield has cultivated over one hundred fifty plants situated on terraces in her expansive property, which descends towards the muddy local waterway. "Visitors frequently express amazement," she notes, gesturing towards the interwoven vineyard. "It's astonishing to them they are viewing rows of vines in a city street."

Currently, the filmmaker, sixty, is harvesting clusters of deep violet Rondo grapes from rows of vines slung across the cliff-side with the assistance of her child, Luca. The conservationist, a documentary producer who has contributed to streaming service's nature programming and BBC Two's Gardeners' World, was motivated to cultivate vines after seeing her neighbour's grapevines. She's discovered that hobbyists can produce intriguing, pleasurable natural wine, which can command prices of upwards of £7 a glass in the increasing quantity of establishments focusing on minimal-intervention vintages. "It is incredibly satisfying that you can actually make quality, natural wine," she says. "It is quite on trend, but really it's reviving an traditional method of making wine."

"During foot-stomping the grapes, the various wild yeasts come off the surfaces into the liquid," says the winemaker, partially submerged in a bucket of small branches, seeds and red liquid. "This represents how vintages were historically produced, but industrial wineries introduce preservatives to eliminate the natural cultures and then incorporate a commercially produced culture."

Challenging Conditions and Inventive Solutions

In the immediate vicinity sprightly retiree Bob Reeve, who motivated his neighbor to plant her vines, has assembled his companions to pick white wine varieties from one hundred vines he has arranged precisely across multiple levels. The former teacher, a Lancashire-born physical education instructor who taught at Bristol University cultivated an interest in wine on annual sporting trips to Europe. But it is a challenge to grow this particular variety in the humidity of the valley, with temperature fluctuations moving through from the nearby estuary. "I wanted to make Burgundian wines in this location, which is a bit bonkers," says the retiree with a smile. "Chardonnay is late to ripen and particularly vulnerable to fungal infections."

"My goal was creating European-style vintages here, which is a bit bonkers"

The unpredictable local weather is not the only problem faced by winegrowers. Reeve has been compelled to erect a fence on