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Each 20 minutes or so, an ageing diesel train arrives at a spray-painted station. Nearby, a police siren pierces the near-constant road noise. Daily travelers hurry past collapsing, ivy-covered fencing panels as rain clouds gather.

It is maybe the least likely spot you anticipate to find a perfectly formed vineyard. But one local grower has managed to 40 mature vines sagging with plump mauve berries on a sprawling garden plot situated between a line of 1930s houses and a local rail line just north of the city downtown.

"I've seen individuals hiding heroin or whatever in those bushes," states Bayliss-Smith. "Yet you simply continue ... and continue caring for your grapevines."

Bayliss-Smith, forty-six, a filmmaker who runs a kombucha drinks business, is not the only urban winemaker. He's pulled together a informal group of growers who produce wine from four discreet urban vineyards tucked away in private yards and community plots throughout Bristol. It is too clandestine to have an official name yet, but the group's messaging chat is called Vineyard Dreams.

Urban Vineyards Around the World

So far, the grower'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 plants on the hillsides of the French capital's historic artistic district neighbourhood and over three thousand vines overlooking and within Turin. Based in Italy non-profit association is at the vanguard of a movement reviving urban grape cultivation in traditional winemaking nations, but has discovered them all over the world, including cities in Japan, South Asia and Uzbekistan.

"Grape gardens assist urban areas stay more eco-friendly and more diverse. They protect open space from development by creating permanent, productive farming plots inside urban environments," says the association's president.

Similar to other vintages, those created in cities are a result of the earth the plants grow in, the vagaries of the weather and the individuals who tend the grapes. "A bottle of wine represents the beauty, local spirit, environment and heritage of a urban center," adds the spokesperson.

Unknown Eastern European Variety

Returning to the city, the grower is in a race against time to gather the grapevines he grew from a plant abandoned in his garden by a Polish family. If the precipitation arrives, then the birds may take advantage to feast again. "Here we have the mystery Eastern European grape," he comments, as he removes damaged and mouldy grapes from the shimmering bunches. "We don't really know what variety they are, but they're definitely hardy. In contrast to noble varieties – Pinot Noir, white wine grapes and additional renowned European varieties – you don't have to spray them with pesticides ... this is possibly a unique cultivar that was bred by the Soviets."

Collective Activities Throughout Bristol

The other members of the collective are also taking advantage of bright periods between showers of autumn rain. At a rooftop garden overlooking Bristol's shimmering harbour, where historic trading ships once floated with casks of wine from Europe and the Iberian peninsula, Katy Grant is collecting her dark berries from approximately fifty vines. "I love the smell of these vines. It is so reminiscent," she says, pausing with a basket of fruit slung over her arm. "It recalls the fragrance of Provence when you roll down the car windows on vacation."

The humanitarian worker, fifty-two, who has spent over two decades working for charitable groups in conflict zones, inadvertently inherited the grape garden when she returned to the United Kingdom from Kenya with her family in recent years. She felt an strong responsibility to look after the grapevines in the garden of their recently acquired property. "This plot has already endured multiple proprietors," she explains. "I deeply appreciate the concept of natural stewardship – of handing this down to future caretakers so they can continue producing from the soil."

Terraced Gardens and Natural Winemaking

Nearby, the remaining cultivators of the group are hard at work on the steep inclines of Avon Gorge. Jo Scofield has cultivated more than one hundred fifty plants situated on terraces in her wild half-acre garden, which descends towards the muddy River Avon. "People are always surprised," she notes, indicating the interwoven grape garden. "It's astonishing to them they can see grapevine lines in a city street."

Today, the filmmaker, 60, is picking clusters of deep violet dark berries from lines of vines slung across the hillside with the help of her child, her family member. The conservationist, a wildlife and conservation film-maker who has worked on Netflix's Great National Parks series and BBC Two's gardening shows, was motivated to cultivate vines after seeing her neighbor's grapevines. She's discovered that amateurs can make intriguing, pleasurable natural wine, which can command prices of more than seven pounds a glass in the increasing quantity of wine bars focusing on minimal-intervention wines. "It is deeply rewarding that you can truly create good, traditional vintage," she states. "It's very on trend, but in reality it's resurrecting an old way of producing wine."

"During foot-stomping the grapes, all the wild yeasts are released from the skins into the juice," explains the winemaker, ankle deep in a bucket of small branches, seeds and crimson juice. "That's how vintages were historically produced, but industrial wineries add sulphur [dioxide] to eliminate the wild yeast and subsequently add a commercially produced yeast."

Difficult Environments and Creative Solutions

A few doors down sprightly retiree another cultivator, who motivated Scofield to plant her vines, has assembled his friends to harvest white wine varieties from the 100 plants he has arranged precisely across two terraces. The former teacher, a Lancashire-born PE teacher who worked at the local university developed a passion for viticulture on annual sporting trips to France. But it is a challenge to cultivate this particular variety in the humidity of the valley, with temperature fluctuations moving through from the Bristol Channel. "I wanted to make Burgundian wines in this location, which is a bit bonkers," admits Reeve with a smile. "This variety is late to ripen and particularly vulnerable to fungal infections."

"My goal was creating European-style vintages here, which is rather ambitious"

The temperamental local weather is not the only problem faced by winegrowers. The gardener has had to install a barrier on