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Each 20 minutes or so, an older diesel-powered railway carriage arrives at a spray-painted stop. Nearby, a police siren pierces the almost continuous traffic drone. Commuters rush by falling apart, ivy-draped garden fences as rain clouds form.

This is perhaps the least likely spot you expect to find a well-established grape-growing plot. However James Bayliss-Smith has cultivated 40 mature vines sagging with round mauve berries on a sprawling allotment sandwiched between a line of historic homes and a local rail line just above Bristol town centre.

"I've noticed people concealing heroin or other items in the shrubbery," says the grower. "Yet you simply continue ... and continue caring for your grapevines."

Bayliss-Smith, 46, a documentary cameraman who also has a fermented beverage company, is not the only urban winemaker. He's pulled together a loose collective of cultivators who produce vintage from several hidden city grape gardens nestled in back gardens and allotments across Bristol. It is too clandestine to have an official name yet, but the collective's messaging chat is called Vineyard Dreams.

Urban Wine Gardens Across the World

To date, the grower's plot is the sole location listed in the City Vineyard Network's upcoming global directory, which includes better-known urban wineries such as the eighteen hundred plants on the hillsides of Paris's historic artistic district area and over three thousand grapevines overlooking and within the Italian city. The Italian-based charitable organization is at the forefront of a movement reviving urban grape cultivation in traditional winemaking nations, but has identified them throughout the world, including urban centers in East Asia, South Asia and Uzbekistan.

"Vineyards help urban areas remain greener and more diverse. They preserve open space from construction by establishing long-term, productive farming plots inside cities," says the association's president.

Similar to other vintages, those created in cities are a result of the earth the vines thrive in, the unpredictability of the climate and the people who care for the grapes. "Each vintage represents the charm, local spirit, landscape and history of a city," notes the spokesperson.

Mystery Polish Grapes

Returning to Bristol, the grower is in a urgent timeline to harvest the vines he cultivated from a plant abandoned in his garden by a Polish family. Should the rain comes, then the birds may seize their chance to feast once more. "Here we have the mystery Polish grape," he says, as he removes damaged and rotten grapes from the glistering bunches. "We don't really know their exact classification, but they are certainly hardy. In contrast to premium grapes – Burgundy grapes, white wine grapes and additional renowned European varieties – you don't have to treat them with pesticides ... this is possibly a unique cultivar that was bred by the Eastern Bloc."

Collective Activities Throughout the City

Additional participants of the collective are additionally making the most of sunny interludes between showers of fall precipitation. On the terrace with views of the city's glistening harbour, where historic trading ships once bobbed with barrels of vintage from Europe and the Iberian peninsula, one cultivator is collecting her dark berries from approximately 50 vines. "I love the smell of these vines. The scent is so evocative," she says, stopping with a container of fruit slung over her shoulder. "It's the scent of southern France when you open the car windows on vacation."

The humanitarian worker, fifty-two, who has devoted more than 20 years working for humanitarian organizations in conflict zones, inadvertently inherited the grape garden when she moved back to the United Kingdom from East Africa with her household in 2018. She experienced an overwhelming duty to look after the grapevines in the yard of their recently acquired property. "This plot has already survived three different owners," she explains. "I deeply appreciate the idea of natural stewardship – of passing this on to someone else so they continue producing from the soil."

Terraced Vineyards and Traditional Winemaking

A short walk away, the final two members of the group are busily laboring on the precipitous slopes of the local river valley. One filmmaker has established over one hundred fifty vines situated on ledges in her expansive property, which descends towards the silty River Avon. "People are always surprised," she notes, indicating the tangled grape garden. "It's astonishing to them they are viewing rows of vines in a city street."

Currently, the filmmaker, 60, is picking clusters of deep violet Rondo grapes from lines of plants arranged along the hillside with the help of her daughter, her family member. Scofield, a wildlife and conservation film-maker who has contributed to Netflix's nature programming and television network's gardening shows, was inspired to plant grapes after seeing her neighbor's vines. She's discovered that amateurs can produce intriguing, enjoyable natural wine, which can sell for more than seven pounds a glass in the growing number of wine bars specialising in minimal-intervention vintages. "It's just incredibly satisfying that you can actually make good, traditional vintage," she states. "It's very fashionable, but in reality it's reviving an traditional method of producing vintage."

"During foot-stomping the fruit, all the wild yeasts are released from the surfaces into the liquid," says Scofield, ankle deep in a container of tiny stems, pips and crimson juice. "That's how wines were made traditionally, but commercial producers add sulphur [dioxide] to kill the natural cultures and subsequently incorporate a commercially produced yeast."

Difficult Environments and Creative Solutions

In the immediate vicinity active senior another cultivator, who inspired Scofield to establish her grapevines, has gathered his friends to pick Chardonnay grapes from the 100 vines he has laid out neatly across two terraces. The former teacher, a northern English physical education instructor who worked at Bristol University cultivated an interest in wine on annual sporting trips to France. However it is a difficult task to grow Chardonnay grapes in the dampness of the gorge, with temperature fluctuations sweeping in and out from the Bristol Channel. "I aimed to make Burgundian wines here, which is somewhat ambitious," says Reeve with a smile. "This variety is late to ripen and very sensitive to fungal infections."

"My goal was creating Burgundian wines in this environment, which is a bit bonkers"

The unpredictable Bristol climate is not the sole problem faced by grape cultivators. The gardener has had to erect a barrier on