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Every quarter of an hour or so, an ageing diesel-powered train arrives at a graffiti-covered station. Nearby, a police siren cuts through the almost continuous traffic drone. Commuters hurry past collapsing, ivy-covered fencing panels as rain clouds form.

It is perhaps the last place you expect to find a perfectly formed grape-growing plot. However James Bayliss-Smith has managed to 40 mature vines heavy with plump mauve berries on a sprawling allotment situated between a line of 1930s houses and a commuter railway just above Bristol town centre.

"I've noticed people hiding illegal substances or whatever in the shrubbery," says the grower. "But you simply continue ... and continue caring for your vines."

Bayliss-Smith, 46, a documentary cameraman who also has a kombucha drinks business, is not the only local vintner. He has pulled together a informal group of cultivators who produce wine from several discreet city grape gardens tucked away in private yards and allotments throughout Bristol. It is too clandestine to have an official name so far, but the group's WhatsApp group is named Vineyard Dreams.

Urban Vineyards Around the World

To date, Bayliss-Smith's allotment is the only one listed in the Urban Vineyards Association's forthcoming global directory, which includes better-known urban wineries such as the eighteen hundred vines on the hillsides of the French capital's renowned Montmartre area and more than three thousand grapevines with views of and within the Italian city. Based in Italy non-profit association is at the forefront of a movement reviving urban grape cultivation in traditional winemaking countries, but has discovered them throughout the globe, including cities in East Asia, Bangladesh and Uzbekistan.

"Vineyards help urban areas remain more eco-friendly and ecologically varied. They protect land from construction by establishing long-term, yielding agricultural units inside urban environments," explains the association's president.

Like all wines, those created in cities are a result of the earth the vines thrive in, the unpredictability of the climate and the individuals who care for the fruit. "Each vintage embodies the charm, local spirit, environment and heritage of a city," adds the president.

Unknown Eastern European Variety

Returning to the city, Bayliss-Smith is in a urgent timeline to harvest the vines he grew from a cutting left in his garden by a Eastern European household. Should the precipitation arrives, then the birds may seize their chance to feast once more. "Here we have the mystery Polish variety," he comments, as he cleans bruised and mouldy grapes from the shimmering bunches. "The variety remains uncertain their exact classification, but they're definitely disease-resistant. In contrast to noble varieties – Burgundy grapes, Chardonnay and other famous European varieties – you need not treat them with pesticides ... this is possibly a special variety that was bred by the Eastern Bloc."

Collective Activities Throughout the City

Additional participants of the group are also taking advantage of sunny interludes between showers of fall precipitation. At a rooftop garden with views of Bristol's glistening harbour, where medieval merchant vessels once floated with casks of vintage from Europe and Spain, one cultivator is harvesting her dark berries from approximately fifty vines. "I love the aroma of the grapevines. The scent is so reminiscent," she says, pausing with a basket of fruit slung over her arm. "It recalls the fragrance of Provence when you open the car windows on vacation."

Grant, 52, who has spent over 20 years working for charitable groups in war-torn regions, inadvertently inherited the grape garden when she moved back to the United Kingdom from East Africa with her family in 2018. She felt an overwhelming duty to look after the grapevines in the garden of their recently acquired property. "This plot has already survived three different owners," she explains. "I really like the idea of environmental care – of passing this on to future caretakers so they keep cultivating from this land."

Sloping Vineyards and Traditional Production

Nearby, the remaining cultivators of the collective are busily laboring on the steep inclines of the local river valley. One filmmaker has cultivated over 150 vines situated on ledges in her expansive property, which tumbles down towards the silty local waterway. "People are always surprised," she says, indicating the tangled vineyard. "It's astonishing to them they are viewing rows of vines in a city street."

Currently, Scofield, sixty, is picking bunches of dusty purple Rondo grapes from rows of plants slung across the cliff-side with the help of her child, her family member. Scofield, a documentary producer who has contributed to streaming service's Great National Parks series and television network's gardening shows, was motivated to plant grapes after observing her neighbor's vines. She has learned that amateurs can make intriguing, enjoyable natural wine, which can sell for upwards of £7 a glass in the increasing quantity of wine bars specialising in low-processing wines. "It's just deeply rewarding that you can actually create quality, natural wine," she says. "It's very on trend, but in reality it's resurrecting an old way of producing wine."

"When I tread the grapes, all the natural microorganisms are released from the surfaces into the liquid," says the winemaker, partially submerged in a bucket of tiny stems, seeds and red liquid. "This represents how wines were made traditionally, but industrial wineries introduce preservatives to eliminate the wild yeast and subsequently incorporate a lab-grown yeast."

Challenging Environments and Inventive Solutions

A few doors down sprightly retiree another cultivator, who motivated Scofield to plant her grapevines, has assembled his companions to pick white wine varieties from the 100 plants he has laid out neatly across two terraces. The former teacher, a northern English PE teacher who worked at the local university cultivated an interest in viticulture on regular visits to France. But it is a difficult task to grow this particular variety in the dampness of the valley, with cooling tides sweeping in and out from the Bristol Channel. "I wanted to produce French-style vintages here, which is a bit bonkers," says the retiree with amusement. "Chardonnay is late to ripen and very sensitive to mildew."

"I wanted to make Burgundian wines in this environment, which is rather ambitious"

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