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Each 20 minutes or so, an ageing diesel-powered railway carriage arrives at a spray-painted station. Close by, a police siren cuts through the almost continuous traffic drone. Commuters hurry past falling apart, ivy-draped fencing panels as rain clouds gather.

This is perhaps the last place you expect to find a perfectly formed grape-growing plot. However one local grower has managed to four dozen established plants sagging with round mauve berries on a rambling garden plot sandwiched between a line of historic homes and a commuter railway just north of the city town centre.

"I've seen people hiding illegal substances or other items in those bushes," says Bayliss-Smith. "But you just get on with it ... and continue caring for your vines."

Bayliss-Smith, forty-six, a documentary cameraman who runs a kombucha drinks business, is not the only urban winemaker. He's organized a loose collective of growers who make wine from four discreet city grape gardens tucked away in back gardens and allotments throughout Bristol. It is too clandestine to have an official name yet, but the collective's WhatsApp group is named Vineyard Dreams.

City Wine Gardens Across the World

To date, Bayliss-Smith's allotment is the sole location registered in the Urban Vineyards Association's upcoming global directory, which features better-known urban wineries such as the 1,800 vines on the hillsides of the French capital's renowned artistic district neighbourhood and over 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 historic wine-producing nations, but has identified them throughout the globe, including urban centers in East Asia, Bangladesh and Central Asia.

"Grape gardens assist urban areas stay greener and ecologically varied. They protect land from construction by creating permanent, yielding agricultural units within urban environments," says the organization's leader.

Like all wines, those created in urban areas are a result of the soils the vines grow in, the unpredictability of the climate and the individuals who tend the fruit. "Each vintage represents the charm, local spirit, environment and heritage of a urban center," adds the spokesperson.

Mystery Polish Grapes

Returning to the city, Bayliss-Smith is in a race against time to harvest the vines he grew from a cutting abandoned in his allotment by a Polish family. Should the rain arrives, then the birds may take advantage to feast once more. "Here we have the mystery Eastern European variety," he says, as he removes damaged and mouldy grapes from the glistering bunches. "The variety remains uncertain what variety they are, but they are certainly hardy. Unlike noble varieties – Burgundy grapes, white wine grapes and additional renowned French grapes – you don't have to treat them with pesticides ... this is possibly a unique cultivar that was bred by the Eastern Bloc."

Group Efforts Throughout Bristol

Additional participants of the group are also making the most of sunny interludes between showers of fall precipitation. On the terrace with views of the city's shimmering harbour, where medieval merchant vessels once bobbed with barrels of vintage from France and the Iberian peninsula, one cultivator is harvesting her dark berries from approximately 50 vines. "I love the aroma of these vines. The scent is so reminiscent," she remarks, pausing with a container of fruit slung over her arm. "It recalls the fragrance of southern France when you roll down the car windows on vacation."

Grant, 52, who has spent over 20 years working for humanitarian organizations in conflict zones, unexpectedly inherited the vineyard when she returned to the United Kingdom from Kenya with her family in 2018. She experienced an overwhelming duty to look after the grapevines in the garden of their new home. "This vineyard has previously endured multiple proprietors," she says. "I really like the idea of natural stewardship – of passing this on to future caretakers so they can keep cultivating from the soil."

Terraced Gardens and Traditional Winemaking

A short walk away, the final two members of the collective are hard at work on the precipitous slopes of Avon Gorge. Jo Scofield has cultivated over one hundred fifty vines situated on terraces in her wild half-acre garden, which tumbles down towards the silty River Avon. "Visitors frequently express amazement," she says, gesturing towards the tangled vineyard. "It's astonishing to them they are viewing rows of vines in a urban neighborhood."

Today, the filmmaker, 60, is picking bunches of deep violet Rondo grapes from rows of vines arranged along the hillside with the assistance of her child, her family member. Scofield, a documentary producer who has contributed to streaming service's nature programming and BBC Two's Gardeners' World, was inspired to cultivate vines after observing her neighbour's vines. She's discovered that hobbyists can produce interesting, enjoyable natural wine, which can command prices of upwards of £7 a serving in the increasing quantity of establishments specialising in minimal-intervention vintages. "It's just incredibly satisfying that you can actually create good, traditional vintage," she says. "It's very fashionable, but really it's reviving an old way of producing vintage."

"When I tread the fruit, the various wild yeasts are released from the surfaces into the liquid," says Scofield, ankle deep in a container of small branches, pips and crimson juice. "This represents how wines were made traditionally, but industrial wineries introduce sulphur [dioxide] to eliminate the natural cultures and subsequently add a lab-grown yeast."

Difficult Conditions and Creative Approaches

In the immediate vicinity sprightly retiree Bob Reeve, who inspired his neighbor to plant her grapevines, has gathered his companions to harvest Chardonnay grapes from one hundred vines he has arranged precisely across multiple levels. Reeve, a Lancashire-born PE teacher who taught at Bristol University developed a passion for wine on annual sporting trips to Europe. But it is a difficult task to cultivate this particular variety in the humidity of the gorge, with temperature fluctuations sweeping in and out from the Bristol Channel. "I aimed to produce Burgundian wines here, which is a bit bonkers," says the retiree with a smile. "Chardonnay is slow-maturing and particularly vulnerable to mildew."

"I wanted to make European-style vintages in this environment, which is a bit bonkers"

The temperamental Bristol climate is not the sole problem encountered by winegrowers. The gardener has had to erect a fence on