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Each 20 minutes or so, an ageing diesel-powered train pulls into a graffiti-covered station. Nearby, a law enforcement alarm cuts through the near-constant traffic drone. Daily travelers hurry past collapsing, ivy-covered garden fences as rain clouds gather.

This is maybe the least likely spot you expect to find a well-established grape-growing plot. However one local grower has managed to four dozen established plants heavy with plump purplish berries on a sprawling garden plot situated between a row of 1930s houses and a local rail line just above Bristol downtown.

"I've seen people hiding heroin or other items in those bushes," says Bayliss-Smith. "Yet you simply continue ... and keep tending to your grapevines."

Bayliss-Smith, 46, a filmmaker who runs a fermented beverage company, is among several urban winemaker. He has organized a loose collective of growers who make wine from several discreet city grape gardens tucked away in back gardens and allotments throughout Bristol. It is too clandestine to possess an official name yet, but the group's messaging chat is named Grape Expectations.

Urban Wine Gardens Across the World

To date, Bayliss-Smith's allotment is the only one listed in the Urban Vineyards Association's forthcoming global directory, which includes more famous city vineyards such as the 1,800 vines on the hillsides of Paris's renowned artistic district neighbourhood and over three thousand grapevines with views of and within Turin. Based in Italy charitable organization is at the forefront of a movement reviving city vineyards in traditional winemaking nations, but has identified them all over the world, including urban centers in Japan, South Asia and Central Asia.

"Vineyards help cities remain more eco-friendly and ecologically varied. They preserve open space from development by creating long-term, yielding farming plots inside urban environments," says the organization's leader.

Similar to other vintages, those produced in cities are a result of the soils the plants thrive in, the unpredictability of the weather and the people who tend the fruit. "A bottle of wine represents the beauty, community, landscape and heritage of a city," adds the president.

Mystery Eastern European Grapes

Returning to Bristol, Bayliss-Smith is in a urgent timeline to gather the vines he cultivated from a cutting abandoned in his garden by a Polish family. Should the rain comes, then the birds may take advantage to attack once more. "This is the enigmatic Eastern European variety," he says, as he cleans bruised and mouldy grapes from the shimmering bunches. "We don't really know their exact classification, but they are certainly hardy. In contrast to noble varieties – Burgundy grapes, white wine grapes and additional renowned French grapes – you need not spray them with chemicals ... this could be a unique cultivar that was developed by the Eastern Bloc."

Group Activities Throughout the City

The other members of the group are also making the most of sunny interludes between bursts of fall precipitation. On the terrace overlooking the city's shimmering waterfront, where historic trading ships once bobbed with barrels of vintage from France and Spain, Katy Grant is harvesting her rondo grapes from about 50 vines. "I adore the aroma of these vines. The scent is so reminiscent," she says, pausing with a container of fruit slung over her arm. "It recalls the fragrance of southern France when you open the car windows on vacation."

Grant, fifty-two, who has spent over two decades working for humanitarian organizations in conflict zones, unexpectedly inherited the grape garden when she moved back to the UK from Kenya with her family in 2018. She experienced an strong responsibility to look after the vines in the garden of their new home. "This plot has already survived three different owners," she says. "I really like the idea of environmental care – of passing this on to someone else so they keep cultivating from the soil."

Sloping Vineyards and Traditional Production

A short walk away, the final two members of the group are busily laboring on the precipitous slopes of Avon Gorge. Jo Scofield has cultivated over 150 vines perched on ledges in her expansive property, which tumbles down towards the muddy local waterway. "People are always surprised," she says, indicating the interwoven grape garden. "They can't believe they can see rows of vines in a city street."

Currently, Scofield, sixty, is harvesting clusters of deep violet dark berries from rows of plants arranged along the hillside with the help of her daughter, her family member. Scofield, a wildlife and conservation film-maker who has worked on streaming service's Great National Parks series and BBC Two's Gardeners' World, was motivated to cultivate vines after seeing her neighbor's vines. She has learned that hobbyists can make interesting, pleasurable natural wine, which can sell for more than £7 a glass in the growing number of establishments specialising in low-processing wines. "It's just deeply rewarding that you can actually make good, natural wine," she says. "It is quite on trend, but in reality it's resurrecting an traditional method of producing vintage."

"During foot-stomping the grapes, the various wild yeasts come off the skins into the juice," says Scofield, ankle deep in a container of tiny stems, pips and crimson juice. "This represents how vintages were made traditionally, but commercial producers add sulphur [dioxide] to eliminate the natural cultures and subsequently add a lab-grown yeast."

Difficult Environments and Inventive Solutions

A few doors down active senior another cultivator, who inspired Scofield to plant her vines, has assembled his companions to pick Chardonnay grapes from one hundred vines he has arranged precisely across multiple levels. Reeve, a Lancashire-born PE teacher who worked at Bristol University developed a passion for wine on regular visits to France. However it is a difficult task to cultivate this particular variety in the humidity of the valley, with temperature fluctuations moving through from the Bristol Channel. "I wanted to make French-style vintages in this location, which is somewhat ambitious," admits Reeve with amusement. "This variety is late to ripen and particularly vulnerable to mildew."

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

The temperamental local weather is not the only problem encountered by winegrowers. The gardener has been compelled to install a barrier on