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Each quarter of an hour or so, an ageing diesel train pulls into a spray-painted station. Nearby, a law enforcement alarm cuts through the almost continuous traffic drone. Daily travelers 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. But one local grower has cultivated four dozen established plants heavy with plump mauve berries on a sprawling allotment sandwiched between a line of 1930s houses and a commuter railway just above the city downtown.

"I've noticed individuals hiding illegal substances or whatever in the shrubbery," says the grower. "But you just get on with it ... and continue caring for your grapevines."

The cameraman, 46, a filmmaker who also has a kombucha drinks business, is among several urban winemaker. He has organized a loose collective of cultivators who make wine from several discreet city grape gardens tucked away in back gardens and community plots across Bristol. The project is sufficiently underground to possess an formal title so far, but the collective's WhatsApp group is named Vineyard Dreams.

City Wine Gardens Around the Globe

To date, the grower's plot is the only one listed in the City Vineyard Network's upcoming world atlas, which includes better-known urban wineries such as the eighteen hundred vines on the hillsides of the French capital's historic artistic district neighbourhood and over three thousand grapevines with views of and within Turin. The Italian-based non-profit association is at the vanguard of a movement re-establishing city vineyards in historic wine-producing countries, but has identified them throughout the world, including cities in East Asia, South Asia and Uzbekistan.

"Vineyards assist urban areas remain more eco-friendly and more diverse. They preserve open space from development by establishing permanent, yielding farming plots within urban environments," says the organization's leader.

Like all wines, those created in cities are a product of the earth the vines grow in, the vagaries of the climate and the people who care for the grapes. "A bottle of wine represents the beauty, community, landscape and history of a urban center," notes the president.

Unknown Eastern European Variety

Returning to Bristol, the grower is in a race against time to harvest the grapevines he cultivated from a plant left in his garden by a Eastern European household. If the precipitation comes, then the pigeons may take advantage to feast again. "Here we have the mystery Polish variety," he says, as he removes damaged and mouldy grapes from the shimmering 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 chemicals ... this is possibly a unique cultivar that was developed by the Eastern Bloc."

Group Efforts Throughout Bristol

Additional participants of the group are additionally taking advantage of sunny interludes between bursts of fall precipitation. At a rooftop garden overlooking the city's shimmering waterfront, where medieval merchant vessels once bobbed with casks of wine from Europe and Spain, Katy Grant is harvesting her dark berries from about 50 plants. "I love the aroma of these vines. It is so evocative," she says, pausing with a basket of grapes slung over her shoulder. "It's the scent of southern France when you roll down the vehicle windows on vacation."

The humanitarian worker, fifty-two, who has devoted more than two decades working for charitable groups in conflict zones, inadvertently inherited the grape garden when she returned to the UK from Kenya with her household in 2018. She experienced an strong responsibility to look after the vines in the garden of their new home. "This plot has already endured three different owners," she says. "I deeply appreciate the concept of environmental care – of handing this down to future caretakers so they can keep cultivating from the soil."

Terraced Vineyards and Natural Production

A short walk away, the remaining cultivators of the group are hard at work on the steep inclines of the local river valley. One filmmaker has established over one hundred fifty vines perched on terraces in her wild half-acre garden, which descends towards the silty River Avon. "Visitors frequently express amazement," she notes, gesturing towards the tangled grape garden. "They can't believe they are viewing rows of vines in a urban neighborhood."

Today, Scofield, 60, is picking clusters of dusty purple Rondo grapes from lines of plants slung across the hillside with the help of her daughter, her family member. Scofield, a documentary producer who has contributed to Netflix's Great National Parks series and television network's Gardeners' World, was inspired to cultivate vines after seeing her neighbor's vines. She's discovered that amateurs can make interesting, pleasurable natural wine, which can sell for upwards of seven pounds a serving in the growing number of establishments specialising in minimal-intervention wines. "It is deeply rewarding that you can truly create good, traditional vintage," she states. "It's very fashionable, but in reality it's reviving an old way of making vintage."

"When I tread the fruit, all the natural microorganisms are released from the surfaces and enter the liquid," says the winemaker, ankle deep in a bucket of tiny stems, seeds and red liquid. "This represents how vintages were historically produced, but commercial producers add sulphur [dioxide] to eliminate the natural cultures and then add a commercially produced culture."

Challenging Conditions and Creative Solutions

A few doors down sprightly retiree another cultivator, who inspired Scofield to establish her vines, has assembled his friends to pick Chardonnay grapes from one hundred plants he has laid out neatly across two terraces. The former teacher, a northern English PE teacher who taught at Bristol University developed a passion for viticulture on annual sporting trips to Europe. But it is a difficult task to cultivate Chardonnay grapes in the humidity of the valley, with cooling tides sweeping in and out from the Bristol Channel. "I aimed to make Burgundian wines here, which is a bit bonkers," admits Reeve with a smile. "Chardonnay is slow-maturing and particularly vulnerable to fungal infections."

"I wanted to make Burgundian wines in this environment, which is a bit bonkers"

The temperamental Bristol climate is not the only problem faced by winegrowers. The gardener has been compelled to install a barrier on