A generation's worth of summers tending to the meticulously trained vines on trellises that span the length of a standard city lot...
A verdant canopy of an urban vineyard to supply a family with enough grapes to crush into a few dozen bottles of home-made wine a year...
This season's bounty will not be harvested by the same family anymore - the house has been sold and who knows if the new owners are wine lovers, grape eaters, pruning enthusiasts...
I have walked by this suspended viticultural endeavour [at the corner of Victoria Drive and the East 14th laneway] on the way to Trout Lake [John Hendry Park] for almost three decades now and have always admired the enduring dedication in the maintenance of their elevated grape production and their old world attitude towards using their whole property - including the space above their land - to yield what they need...
the house sits empty now, the grass unmowed... but the vines thrive on without the hands that have known them for so long, and even without the required sunshine hours so sadly lacking in this non-summer of ours...
a left behind concrete table that would have known many a bottle and cluttered glasses and bearing stains from more then a few spilled drops...
the path to the [almost wine-coloured!] front door of the large Vancouver Special house is edged by sedum-filled pots fashioned from cut opened rubber tires...
when I walked by on the weekend, I spied the clusters of green grapes dangling demurely from the tangle of vines and leaves, their pulp slowly sweetening in the already fall-like sunshine...
in the garage where the large wooden barrels would have been rolled out in anticipation of the juice to be fermented, renovation work is underway - and I was hesitant to ask if this expansive grape arbour will remain, not wanting to know the negative response...
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