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Vineyards usually sit happily on country hillsides, way out of the city smog, but you'll find a few urban wineries around the world, from Clos Montmartre in Paris to D’Augustine Vineyard in Los Angeles.

A new project in Sydney aims to take that concept even further by creating the world's largest urban vineyard by "crowd-planting" vines across the city.

Australia's very first vineyard was planted in the centre of the city in 1791, on Macquarie Street in the CBD. Now, the The Urban Vineyard Project, a promotional activity launched by online wine retailer Cracka Wines, will encourage locals to plant a "connected" vineyard across the city, in people's backyards, balconies, and windowsills.

Cracka will give away thousands of pinot noir and riesling grapevines through their website for free — they just gave out the first batch at Sydney's Wine Island festival last weekend.

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Once the plants are in position, people can upload the location of their vines to an online hub, which will eventually generate a map of the urban vineyard and track growth in real time.

The hub will also feature handy how-to materials for new greenthumbs and seasoned gardeners alike, from video tutorials to care instructions. Their team is planning to eventually post information on how to make your own wine from the grapes at home.

Vine receivers are encouraged to pick a sunny spot in their home, like a window sill or garden bed, that receives the morning sun but is spared the afternoon heat. Then, the instructions call for you to snip the bottom and top of your vine to expose the green wood, and place the cutting in about 10-20cm of soil, buds up.

The project, according to Cracka Wines founder and CEO Dean Taylor, is an exercise in education for a nation that, quite frankly, smashes a shitload of vino.

“On average, Aussies drink around 530 million litres of wine each year," he said in a press statement. "We want to educate them further on the wine making process and bring everyone together over a shared love of wine.”

Whether Sydney's inner city conditions will nurture this kind of project remains to be seen, but the idea of a city-wide, "crowd-planted" vineyard is intriguingly ambitious.

Bottoms up.

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