Urban farms and rooftop vineyards: Meet the greener, cleaner forces behind Montréal’s food scene

Standing on the rooftop of a converted warehouse in the Ahuntsic-Cartierville neighborhood on the north fringe of Montreal, once the center of Montréal’s textile industry, I feel a little bit like Batwoman. Except, instead of surveying the streets below for crime, I am looking at an urban vineyard. In fact, it’s Canada’s first urban rooftop vineyard: Rows of vines of the local Québec variety that are resilient to cold and wind, grown in bags made of felt.

“These are a rustic and cold resistant variety of grapes called Frontenac,” explains Kevin Drouin-Léger, the coordinator of La Centrale Agricole, the world’s largest urban agriculture cooperative whose rooftop we’re on. “We make wines combining these grapes with grapes from other rooftop locations.”

Montréal is home to Canada’s first urban rooftop vineyard, and is a designated world capital of urban farming. It’s in places like this, up on rooftops, deep in its basements, and inside derelict warehouses where Montréal harbors a secret to the future of sustainable city living: A thriving urban agriculture network.

Supplying the city’s legendary cafés and restaurants with fresh produce, it’s down to these urban farms that establishments are proudly serving high-quality and locally sourced food and wine—and it’s these same urban farms stocking Montréal’s many markets such as Atwater Market on the Lachine Canal and Jean Talon Market at Little Italy.