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The City of Bristol's Garden Wine Gardens: Grape-Treading Fruit in City Gardens
Each quarter of an hour or so, an ageing diesel-powered railway carriage pulls into a graffiti-covered station. Nearby, a law enforcement alarm pierces the almost continuous traffic drone. Daily travelers hurry past falling apart, ivy-covered garden fences as rain clouds form.
It is maybe the least likely spot you anticipate to find a perfectly formed vineyard. But one local grower has managed to four dozen established plants heavy with round purplish grapes on a rambling allotment situated between a line of historic homes and a local rail line just north of the city town centre.
"I've seen people hiding heroin or whatever in those bushes," states Bayliss-Smith. "Yet you just get on with it ... and continue caring for your vines."
Bayliss-Smith, 46, a filmmaker who runs a kombucha drinks business, is among several local vintner. He's organized a loose collective of cultivators who make wine from several discreet city grape gardens nestled in back gardens and community plots across Bristol. It is sufficiently underground to have an official name yet, but the collective's messaging chat is called Grape Expectations.
Urban Wine Gardens Across the Globe
So far, Bayliss-Smith's allotment is the only one listed in the City Vineyard Network's upcoming world atlas, which features better-known urban wineries such as the eighteen hundred vines on the slopes of Paris's historic Montmartre neighbourhood and more than three thousand grapevines with views of and inside Turin. Based in Italy non-profit association is at the forefront of a movement re-establishing urban grape cultivation in traditional winemaking countries, but has discovered them throughout the world, including urban centers in Japan, South Asia and Central Asia.
"Grape gardens help cities stay greener and more diverse. These spaces protect open space from development by creating long-term, productive farming plots within urban environments," says the organization's leader.
Like all wines, those produced in cities are a product of the earth the vines thrive in, the unpredictability of the climate and the individuals who tend the fruit. "A bottle of wine represents the charm, community, landscape and heritage of a city," notes the president.
Unknown Eastern European Variety
Back in the city, Bayliss-Smith is in a race against time to harvest the grapevines he grew from a cutting abandoned in his allotment by a Eastern European household. Should the precipitation comes, then the birds may take advantage to feast once more. "This is the enigmatic Polish grape," he comments, as he removes damaged and rotten berries from the shimmering bunches. "The variety remains uncertain their exact classification, but they're definitely disease-resistant. Unlike premium grapes – Burgundy grapes, white wine grapes and other famous European varieties – you don't have to treat them with pesticides ... this could be a unique cultivar that was bred by the Eastern Bloc."
Group Activities Throughout Bristol
The other members of the group are additionally making the most of bright periods between bursts of fall precipitation. On the terrace with views of Bristol's glistening waterfront, where medieval merchant vessels once bobbed with casks of wine from France and the Iberian peninsula, Katy Grant is collecting her rondo grapes from approximately fifty vines. "I adore the aroma of the grapevines. It is so evocative," she remarks, pausing with a basket of grapes slung over her arm. "It recalls the fragrance of southern France when you open the car windows on vacation."
Grant, 52, who has spent over two decades working for charitable groups in conflict zones, unexpectedly inherited the vineyard when she returned 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 plot has already survived three different owners," she explains. "I deeply appreciate the concept of environmental care – of passing this on to future caretakers so they can keep cultivating from this land."
Sloping Gardens and Natural Production
Nearby, the remaining cultivators of the collective are busily laboring on the precipitous slopes of the local river valley. One filmmaker has cultivated over one hundred fifty vines perched on ledges in her expansive property, which tumbles down towards the muddy River Avon. "People are always surprised," she notes, gesturing towards the tangled grape garden. "They can't believe they can see rows of vines in a city street."
Today, the filmmaker, sixty, is harvesting clusters of deep violet dark berries from rows of vines arranged along the hillside with the help of her daughter, Luca. Scofield, a wildlife and conservation film-maker who has contributed to streaming service's nature programming and BBC Two's Gardeners' World, was motivated to plant grapes after seeing her neighbour's grapevines. She's discovered that amateurs can make intriguing, enjoyable natural wine, which can command prices of upwards of seven pounds a serving in the increasing quantity of establishments specialising in low-processing wines. "It's just incredibly satisfying that you can actually create quality, traditional vintage," she says. "It is quite fashionable, but really it's reviving an traditional method of making wine."
"During foot-stomping the fruit, the various wild yeasts are released from the skins into the juice," explains the winemaker, ankle deep in a bucket of small branches, pips and red liquid. "This represents how vintages were historically produced, but industrial wineries add preservatives to eliminate the natural cultures and subsequently incorporate a commercially produced culture."
Difficult Conditions and Creative Solutions
In the immediate vicinity sprightly retiree Bob Reeve, who motivated his neighbor to establish her vines, has assembled his friends to harvest white wine varieties from the 100 vines he has laid out neatly across multiple levels. Reeve, a Lancashire-born physical education instructor who taught at the local university cultivated an interest in viticulture on annual sporting trips to France. But it is a difficult task to cultivate Chardonnay grapes in the humidity of the valley, with temperature fluctuations moving through from the Bristol Channel. "I wanted to make Burgundian wines here, which is somewhat ambitious," admits Reeve with a smile. "This variety is slow-maturing and very sensitive to fungal infections."
"I wanted to make Burgundian wines here, which is a bit bonkers"
The unpredictable local weather is not the sole problem encountered by winegrowers. Reeve has been compelled to install a fence on
Brian Hernandez
A passionate writer and shopping enthusiast with a keen eye for quality products and lifestyle trends.
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