Bristol's Backyard Wine Gardens: Foot-Stomping Fruit in Urban Spaces

Each quarter of an hour or so, an ageing diesel railway carriage pulls into a spray-painted station. Nearby, a police siren cuts through the near-constant road noise. Commuters hurry past collapsing, ivy-covered garden fences as storm clouds gather.

It is maybe the last place you expect to find a well-established vineyard. But James Bayliss-Smith has cultivated four dozen established plants heavy with plump purplish grapes on a sprawling garden plot situated between a row of 1930s houses and a local rail line just north of Bristol downtown.

"I've noticed people concealing illegal substances or whatever in those bushes," says Bayliss-Smith. "But you just get on with it ... and continue caring for your vines."

The cameraman, 46, a filmmaker who runs a kombucha drinks business, is not the only urban winemaker. He has organized a loose collective of growers who produce wine from four discreet urban vineyards nestled in private yards and allotments across the city. The project is too clandestine to possess an official name yet, but the collective's messaging chat is called Grape Expectations.

Urban Vineyards Around the World

To date, the grower's plot is the sole location registered in the Urban Vineyards Association's upcoming world atlas, which includes better-known urban wineries such as the 1,800 vines on the slopes of the French capital's historic artistic district neighbourhood and over 3,000 grapevines overlooking and inside Turin. Based in Italy non-profit association is at the forefront of a initiative reviving urban grape cultivation in historic wine-producing countries, but has discovered them throughout the world, including cities in Japan, South Asia and Central Asia.

"Grape gardens help cities stay more eco-friendly and more diverse. These spaces protect open space from development by establishing permanent, yielding farming plots inside cities," says the organization's leader.

Similar to other vintages, those produced in cities are a result of the soils the vines grow in, the unpredictability of the climate and the individuals who tend the grapes. "A bottle of wine represents the charm, community, landscape and history of a urban center," notes the president.

Unknown Eastern European Grapes

Back in the city, Bayliss-Smith is in a race against time to gather the vines he grew from a cutting abandoned in his allotment by a Polish family. Should the precipitation comes, then the pigeons may take advantage to feast once more. "This is the mystery Eastern European grape," he says, as he removes bruised and mouldy berries from the glistering bunches. "The variety remains uncertain what variety they are, but they're definitely disease-resistant. In contrast to premium grapes – Pinot Noir, white wine grapes and other famous French grapes – you need not treat them with pesticides ... this could be a unique cultivar that was developed by the Soviets."

Collective Activities Across Bristol

The other members of the group are additionally taking advantage of bright periods between showers of fall precipitation. At a rooftop garden with views of the city's shimmering waterfront, where historic trading ships once bobbed with barrels of wine from Europe and the Iberian peninsula, one cultivator is collecting her rondo grapes from about 50 plants. "I love the smell of the grapevines. The scent is so reminiscent," she remarks, stopping with a container of grapes resting on her shoulder. "It recalls the fragrance of Provence when you roll down the vehicle windows on holiday."

The humanitarian worker, 52, who has devoted more than two decades working for charitable groups in conflict zones, inadvertently took over the grape garden when she returned to the UK from Kenya with her family in 2018. She felt an overwhelming duty to maintain the grapevines in the garden of their recently acquired property. "This plot has already survived three different owners," she says. "I deeply appreciate the concept of natural stewardship – of handing this down to future caretakers so they can keep cultivating from the soil."

Sloping Gardens and Natural Production

A short walk away, the remaining cultivators of the collective are busily laboring on the precipitous slopes of Avon Gorge. Jo Scofield has established more than 150 plants perched on terraces in her expansive property, which tumbles down towards the silty River Avon. "People are always surprised," she says, indicating the interwoven grape garden. "It's astonishing to them they are viewing rows of vines in a urban neighborhood."

Today, the filmmaker, 60, is picking bunches of deep violet dark berries from rows of plants arranged along the cliff-side with the help of her daughter, Luca. The conservationist, a documentary producer who has worked on streaming service's nature programming and BBC Two's gardening shows, was motivated to plant grapes after observing her neighbour's vines. She's discovered that hobbyists can produce intriguing, pleasurable traditional vintage, which can command prices of more than seven pounds a glass in the increasing quantity of establishments specialising in minimal-intervention vintages. "It is deeply rewarding that you can actually make good, natural wine," she states. "It's very fashionable, but really it's resurrecting an old way of producing wine."

"During foot-stomping the grapes, the various natural microorganisms are released from the surfaces and enter the juice," says Scofield, partially submerged in a bucket of tiny stems, seeds and crimson juice. "That's how wines were made traditionally, but industrial wineries add preservatives to eliminate the natural cultures and then incorporate a lab-grown yeast."

Difficult Conditions and Inventive Solutions

In the immediate vicinity sprightly retiree another cultivator, who inspired Scofield to establish her grapevines, has gathered his companions to harvest white wine varieties from the 100 plants he has laid out neatly across two terraces. Reeve, a Lancashire-born physical education instructor who worked at the local university developed a passion for wine on annual sporting trips to France. However it is a difficult task to grow Chardonnay grapes in the humidity of the gorge, with cooling tides sweeping in and out from the Bristol Channel. "I wanted to produce French-style vintages in this location, which is a bit bonkers," says the retiree with a smile. "This variety is slow-maturing and particularly vulnerable to fungal infections."

"I wanted to make Burgundian wines here, which is a bit bonkers"

The temperamental local weather is not the sole problem faced by grape cultivators. Reeve has had to erect a fence on