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Each quarter of an hour or so, an older diesel-powered train pulls into a spray-painted stop. Close by, a law enforcement alarm pierces the near-constant road noise. Daily travelers hurry past falling apart, ivy-draped garden fences as storm clouds form.

This is maybe the last place you anticipate to find a perfectly formed grape-growing plot. However James Bayliss-Smith has cultivated 40 mature vines heavy with plump purplish berries on a sprawling garden plot situated between a row of 1930s houses and a commuter railway just north of Bristol downtown.

"I've noticed people concealing illegal substances or other items in those bushes," says the grower. "Yet you just get on with it ... and keep tending to your grapevines."

The cameraman, 46, a documentary cameraman who also has a fermented beverage company, is among several urban winemaker. He's organized a loose collective of growers who make wine from four hidden city grape gardens nestled in private yards and allotments throughout Bristol. It is sufficiently underground to have an formal title yet, but the collective's WhatsApp group is called Vineyard Dreams.

City Vineyards Across the Globe

To date, Bayliss-Smith's plot is the sole location registered in the Urban Vineyards Association's forthcoming global directory, which includes better-known urban wineries such as the 1,800 vines on the hillsides of the French capital's renowned artistic district area and more than 3,000 vines overlooking and within Turin. Based in Italy charitable organization is at the vanguard of a movement re-establishing city vineyards in traditional winemaking countries, but has discovered them throughout the globe, including cities in East Asia, Bangladesh and Central Asia.

"Vineyards assist cities stay more eco-friendly and ecologically varied. These spaces preserve land from construction by establishing permanent, yielding farming plots within cities," says the association's president.

Like all wines, those created in urban areas are a result of the soils the vines grow in, the vagaries of the climate and the individuals who care for the grapes. "Each vintage represents the charm, community, environment and heritage of a urban center," notes the president.

Unknown Polish Grapes

Back in the city, Bayliss-Smith is in a urgent timeline to harvest the grapevines he grew from a cutting 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 enigmatic Eastern European grape," he comments, as he removes bruised and mouldy grapes from the shimmering bunches. "We don't really know their exact classification, but they're definitely disease-resistant. Unlike noble varieties – Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and other famous French grapes – you need not spray them with chemicals ... this could be a unique cultivar that was bred by the Eastern Bloc."

Collective Activities Throughout Bristol

Additional participants of the group are also taking advantage of bright periods between showers of fall precipitation. On the terrace with views of the city's shimmering harbour, where historic trading ships once bobbed with barrels of wine from Europe and the Iberian peninsula, one cultivator is collecting her dark berries from approximately fifty plants. "I adore the smell of these vines. It is so reminiscent," she says, pausing with a container of grapes slung over her shoulder. "It recalls the fragrance of southern France when you roll down the vehicle windows on holiday."

Grant, fifty-two, who has spent over 20 years working for charitable groups in war-torn regions, inadvertently took over the vineyard when she returned to the UK from Kenya with her family in recent years. She experienced an overwhelming duty to maintain the grapevines in the yard of their recently acquired property. "This vineyard has already survived multiple proprietors," she says. "I deeply appreciate the idea of environmental care – of handing this down to future caretakers so they can keep cultivating from this land."

Sloping Vineyards and Traditional Production

A short walk away, the final two members of the collective are busily laboring on the precipitous slopes of Avon Gorge. Jo Scofield has established over one hundred fifty plants perched on ledges in her wild half-acre garden, which descends towards the muddy River Avon. "People are always surprised," she notes, gesturing towards the interwoven grape garden. "It's astonishing to them they are viewing rows of vines in a city street."

Today, the filmmaker, sixty, is picking clusters of deep violet dark berries from rows of plants slung across the cliff-side with the assistance of her daughter, Luca. Scofield, a wildlife and conservation film-maker who has worked on streaming service's nature programming and BBC Two's Gardeners' World, was inspired to cultivate vines after observing her neighbor's vines. She has learned that hobbyists can produce intriguing, pleasurable traditional vintage, which can sell for upwards of £7 a serving in the increasing quantity of establishments focusing on minimal-intervention vintages. "It is incredibly satisfying that you can truly create good, traditional vintage," she says. "It's very on trend, but in reality it's reviving an traditional method of making vintage."

"When I tread the grapes, all the wild yeasts are released from the surfaces and enter the juice," explains Scofield, ankle deep in a bucket of tiny stems, seeds and crimson juice. "This represents how wines were historically produced, but commercial producers introduce sulphur [dioxide] to kill the natural cultures and subsequently add a commercially produced culture."

Challenging Environments and Inventive Approaches

In the immediate vicinity active senior Bob Reeve, who motivated Scofield to establish her vines, has assembled his friends to pick white wine varieties from one hundred vines he has laid out neatly across multiple levels. Reeve, a Lancashire-born PE teacher who worked at the local university cultivated an interest in wine on annual sporting trips to France. But it is a challenge to cultivate this particular variety in the dampness of the valley, with cooling tides moving through from the nearby estuary. "I aimed to produce French-style vintages in this location, which is somewhat ambitious," admits Reeve with amusement. "Chardonnay is slow-maturing and very sensitive to fungal infections."

"My goal was creating European-style vintages in this environment, which is a bit bonkers"

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