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Every 20 minutes or so, an older diesel-powered railway carriage pulls into a graffiti-covered station. Nearby, a law enforcement alarm pierces the almost continuous road noise. Daily travelers rush by falling apart, ivy-covered garden fences as rain clouds gather.

This is maybe the least likely spot you anticipate to find a perfectly formed vineyard. However James Bayliss-Smith has managed to 40 mature vines sagging with round purplish grapes on a rambling allotment situated between a row of 1930s houses and a local rail line just above the city town centre.

"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 vines."

Bayliss-Smith, 46, a filmmaker who runs a fermented beverage company, is among several urban winemaker. He has pulled together a informal group of cultivators who make vintage from four discreet urban vineyards tucked away in back gardens and allotments throughout the city. It is too clandestine to have an formal title yet, but the collective's WhatsApp group is named Vineyard Dreams.

City Wine Gardens Across the World

To date, Bayliss-Smith's plot is the only one registered in the Urban Vineyards Association's upcoming global directory, which features more famous urban wineries such as the 1,800 vines on the hillsides of the French capital's renowned Montmartre area and more than 3,000 grapevines overlooking and inside Turin. Based in Italy non-profit association is at the forefront of a initiative re-establishing city vineyards in traditional winemaking countries, but has discovered them throughout the world, including urban centers in Japan, Bangladesh and Central Asia.

"Vineyards assist urban areas remain more eco-friendly and more diverse. These spaces preserve open space from development by creating permanent, yielding agricultural units within cities," says the association's president.

Like all wines, those produced in urban areas are a result of the earth the plants grow in, the unpredictability of the weather and the people who care for the grapes. "Each vintage represents the beauty, community, landscape and history of a urban center," notes the president.

Mystery Polish Grapes

Returning to Bristol, the grower is in a race against time to gather the vines he grew from a cutting left in his garden by a Eastern European household. Should the rain arrives, then the pigeons may take advantage to attack again. "This is the mystery Eastern European variety," he comments, as he removes bruised and rotten grapes from the glistering clusters. "We don't really know their exact classification, but they're definitely disease-resistant. In contrast to premium grapes – Burgundy grapes, white wine grapes and other famous French grapes – you need not treat them with chemicals ... this could be a special variety that was developed by the Eastern Bloc."

Group Efforts Across Bristol

Additional participants of the collective are additionally making the most of sunny interludes between showers of autumn rain. On the terrace with views of the city's glistening waterfront, where medieval merchant vessels once floated with barrels of vintage from Europe and the Iberian peninsula, one cultivator is collecting her dark berries from approximately fifty plants. "I love the aroma of these vines. The scent is so evocative," she remarks, pausing with a basket of fruit resting on her shoulder. "It's the scent of southern France when you roll down the car windows on holiday."

The humanitarian worker, fifty-two, who has spent over two decades working for humanitarian organizations in conflict zones, inadvertently inherited the grape garden when she moved back to the UK from Kenya with her household in recent years. She experienced an strong responsibility to maintain the grapevines in the garden of their recently acquired property. "This plot has previously endured three different owners," she explains. "I really like the concept of environmental care – of passing this on to future caretakers so they can keep cultivating from the soil."

Terraced Gardens and Natural Winemaking

Nearby, the remaining cultivators of the collective are busily laboring on the precipitous slopes of Avon Gorge. Jo Scofield has established more than one hundred fifty vines perched on terraces in her wild half-acre garden, which descends towards the silty River Avon. "People are always surprised," she notes, gesturing towards the tangled grape garden. "It's astonishing to them they can see grapevine lines in a city street."

Today, Scofield, sixty, is harvesting clusters of deep violet Rondo grapes from rows of plants slung across the cliff-side with the assistance of her child, Luca. The conservationist, a documentary producer who has worked on streaming service's Great National Parks series and television network's gardening shows, was inspired to cultivate vines after observing her neighbour's grapevines. She's discovered that hobbyists can produce interesting, enjoyable traditional vintage, which can command prices of more than £7 a glass in the increasing quantity of establishments focusing on low-processing vintages. "It is deeply rewarding that you can actually create good, natural wine," she says. "It's very on trend, but really it's resurrecting an old way of making wine."

"During foot-stomping the grapes, the various natural microorganisms come off the skins and enter the liquid," says the winemaker, ankle deep in a container of small branches, pips and crimson juice. "This represents how vintages were made traditionally, but commercial producers introduce preservatives to kill the wild yeast and then incorporate a commercially produced yeast."

Difficult Conditions and Creative Solutions

A few doors down active senior Bob Reeve, who motivated Scofield to plant her vines, has assembled his friends to pick white wine varieties from one hundred plants he has arranged precisely across multiple levels. Reeve, a northern English PE teacher who worked at Bristol University cultivated an interest in viticulture on annual sporting trips to France. But it is a difficult task to grow this particular variety in the humidity of the valley, with temperature fluctuations sweeping in and out from the nearby estuary. "I wanted to produce French-style vintages in this location, which is somewhat ambitious," says the retiree with a smile. "Chardonnay is slow-maturing and particularly vulnerable to fungal infections."

"My goal was creating Burgundian wines here, which is a bit bonkers"

The temperamental Bristol climate is not the only problem encountered by grape cultivators. Reeve has been compelled to install a barrier on