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Each 20 minutes or so, an ageing diesel-powered railway carriage pulls into a spray-painted station. Nearby, a police siren cuts through the near-constant traffic drone. Commuters hurry past falling apart, ivy-covered garden fences as rain clouds gather.

This is perhaps the least likely spot you expect to find a perfectly formed vineyard. However one local grower has managed to 40 mature vines heavy with round mauve grapes on a sprawling allotment sandwiched between a row of historic homes and a commuter railway just north of the city town centre.

"I've noticed individuals hiding heroin or whatever in the shrubbery," states the grower. "Yet you just get on with it ... and continue caring for your grapevines."

The cameraman, 46, a documentary cameraman who also has a kombucha drinks business, is among several urban winemaker. He has organized a loose collective of cultivators who produce wine from several hidden urban vineyards tucked away in back gardens and allotments throughout the city. It is sufficiently underground to have an official name yet, but the collective's WhatsApp group is named Vineyard Dreams.

Urban Vineyards Across the Globe

To date, the grower's allotment is the sole location registered in the City Vineyard Network's forthcoming world atlas, which features more famous urban wineries such as the 1,800 plants on the hillsides of Paris's historic Montmartre neighbourhood and more than 3,000 grapevines overlooking and within Turin. Based in Italy non-profit association is at the forefront of a initiative re-establishing urban grape cultivation in traditional winemaking nations, but has identified them all over the globe, including urban centers in Japan, Bangladesh and Uzbekistan.

"Vineyards help urban areas stay greener and more diverse. They preserve land from construction by establishing permanent, yielding farming plots inside cities," explains the association's president.

Similar to other vintages, those created in cities are a product of the soils the plants thrive in, the vagaries of the weather and the people who tend the fruit. "Each vintage embodies the beauty, community, landscape and heritage of a city," notes the spokesperson.

Unknown Eastern European Grapes

Returning to the city, Bayliss-Smith is in a urgent timeline to harvest the vines he grew from a plant left in his allotment by a Polish family. Should the precipitation comes, then the birds may take advantage to attack once more. "Here we have the mystery Eastern European grape," he says, as he cleans damaged and mouldy berries from the glistering bunches. "The variety remains uncertain their exact classification, but they're definitely disease-resistant. Unlike noble varieties – Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and other famous European varieties – you don't have to treat them with chemicals ... this is possibly a special variety that was developed by the Soviets."

Collective Efforts Across Bristol

The other members of the group are additionally taking advantage of sunny interludes between showers of autumn rain. At a rooftop garden with views of the city's shimmering waterfront, where medieval merchant vessels once bobbed with casks of vintage from Europe and Spain, one cultivator is harvesting her rondo grapes from approximately fifty vines. "I adore the smell of these vines. The scent is so evocative," she says, stopping with a basket of fruit resting on her shoulder. "It recalls the fragrance of Provence when you roll down the car windows on holiday."

The humanitarian worker, 52, who has spent over two decades working for humanitarian organizations in conflict zones, unexpectedly inherited the grape garden when she returned to the United Kingdom from East Africa with her household in 2018. She experienced an strong responsibility to look after the vines in the garden of their recently acquired property. "This vineyard has previously endured three different owners," she says. "I deeply appreciate the idea of environmental care – of passing this on to someone else so they keep cultivating from the soil."

Sloping Vineyards and Natural Winemaking

A short walk away, the final two members of the collective are hard at work on the precipitous slopes of the local river valley. Jo Scofield has cultivated over one hundred fifty plants perched on ledges in her wild half-acre garden, 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 grapevine lines in a urban neighborhood."

Today, the filmmaker, sixty, is harvesting bunches of dusty purple dark berries from rows of plants arranged along the cliff-side with the assistance of her daughter, Luca. Scofield, a documentary producer who has contributed to Netflix's Great National Parks series and BBC Two's Gardeners' World, was motivated to cultivate vines after seeing her neighbour's grapevines. She has learned that amateurs can make intriguing, pleasurable traditional vintage, which can sell for upwards of seven pounds a serving in the increasing quantity of establishments focusing on minimal-intervention wines. "It is incredibly satisfying that you can actually create good, natural wine," she says. "It is quite fashionable, but in reality it's resurrecting an old way of making vintage."

"When I tread the grapes, all the wild yeasts come off the skins into the juice," explains Scofield, partially submerged in a bucket of tiny stems, seeds and crimson juice. "That's how vintages were made traditionally, but commercial producers add sulphur [dioxide] to eliminate the wild yeast and then add a lab-grown culture."

Challenging Conditions and Inventive Solutions

In the immediate vicinity sprightly retiree another cultivator, who inspired Scofield to plant her grapevines, has assembled his companions to pick Chardonnay grapes from the 100 vines he has arranged precisely across multiple levels. The former teacher, a Lancashire-born PE teacher who worked at Bristol University developed a passion for wine on regular visits to Europe. However it is a challenge to cultivate this particular variety in the humidity of the valley, with cooling tides moving through from the nearby estuary. "I wanted to make French-style vintages in this location, which is a bit bonkers," admits Reeve with a smile. "This variety is slow-maturing and very sensitive to fungal infections."

"I wanted to make European-style vintages in this environment, which is rather ambitious"

The unpredictable Bristol climate is not the sole problem faced by grape cultivators. The gardener has been compelled to install a fence on