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Every quarter of an hour or so, an older diesel-powered railway carriage pulls into a graffiti-covered station. Nearby, a police siren pierces the almost continuous road noise. Commuters hurry past collapsing, ivy-draped fencing panels as storm clouds form.

It is maybe the least likely spot you anticipate to find a perfectly formed vineyard. However James Bayliss-Smith has cultivated four dozen established plants sagging with round mauve berries on a rambling allotment sandwiched between a row of historic homes and a local rail line just north of the city town centre.

"I've seen people concealing illegal substances or whatever in the shrubbery," says Bayliss-Smith. "Yet you simply continue ... and keep tending to your vines."

Bayliss-Smith, 46, a documentary cameraman who also has a fermented beverage company, is not the only urban winemaker. He's organized a loose collective of cultivators who produce vintage from several discreet city grape gardens tucked away in private yards and community plots across Bristol. The project is sufficiently underground to possess an formal title yet, but the group's messaging chat is called Grape Expectations.

Urban Wine Gardens Across the Globe

To date, Bayliss-Smith's allotment is the sole location listed in the Urban Vineyards Association's forthcoming world atlas, which includes more famous urban wineries such as the 1,800 plants on the slopes of Paris's renowned Montmartre neighbourhood and more than three thousand grapevines overlooking and within the Italian city. The Italian-based charitable organization is at the forefront of a movement reviving city vineyards in historic wine-producing nations, but has identified them throughout the globe, including cities in Japan, South Asia and Uzbekistan.

"Grape gardens assist cities remain more eco-friendly and ecologically varied. These spaces preserve open space from development by establishing long-term, productive farming plots within urban environments," says the association's president.

Similar to other vintages, those produced in urban areas are a result of the soils the vines grow in, the vagaries of the weather and the individuals who care for the grapes. "A bottle of wine embodies the charm, community, environment and heritage of a urban center," adds the spokesperson.

Unknown Eastern European Grapes

Returning to Bristol, Bayliss-Smith is in a urgent timeline to gather the grapevines he grew from a plant left in his allotment by a Polish family. If the rain arrives, then the birds may take advantage to feast once more. "Here we have the mystery Polish grape," he says, as he cleans bruised and rotten grapes from the glistering bunches. "The variety remains uncertain their exact classification, but they're definitely disease-resistant. Unlike premium grapes – Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and additional renowned French grapes – you need not treat them with chemicals ... this could be a special variety that was bred by the Eastern Bloc."

Group Activities Throughout Bristol

The other members of the collective are additionally taking advantage of sunny interludes between showers of autumn rain. On the terrace overlooking Bristol's glistening waterfront, where medieval merchant vessels once floated with casks of vintage from Europe and Spain, Katy Grant is harvesting her rondo grapes from about 50 vines. "I adore the smell of these vines. It is so evocative," she remarks, pausing with a container of grapes slung over her arm. "It recalls the fragrance of Provence when you roll down the vehicle windows on vacation."

The humanitarian worker, fifty-two, who has spent over 20 years working for humanitarian organizations in war-torn regions, inadvertently inherited the grape garden when she moved back to the UK from East Africa with her family in recent years. She felt an strong responsibility to look after the vines in the garden of their recently acquired property. "This plot has already endured multiple proprietors," she explains. "I deeply appreciate the idea of natural stewardship – of passing this on to someone else so they keep cultivating from this land."

Sloping Vineyards and Traditional Production

Nearby, the remaining cultivators of the collective are hard at work on the precipitous slopes of Avon Gorge. Jo Scofield has established over 150 plants situated on terraces in her wild half-acre garden, which tumbles down towards the silty River Avon. "Visitors frequently express amazement," she says, indicating the tangled grape garden. "It's astonishing to them they are viewing grapevine lines in a urban neighborhood."

Currently, the filmmaker, sixty, is picking clusters of dusty purple dark berries from lines of vines slung across the hillside with the help of her daughter, Luca. Scofield, a wildlife and conservation film-maker who has worked on Netflix's Great National Parks series and BBC Two's gardening shows, was inspired to cultivate vines after observing her neighbor's vines. She's discovered that hobbyists can make interesting, enjoyable traditional vintage, which can command prices of more than seven pounds a glass in the growing number of establishments focusing on minimal-intervention wines. "It's just incredibly satisfying that you can actually make good, traditional vintage," she says. "It is quite on trend, but really it's reviving an traditional method of producing wine."

"When I tread the fruit, the various wild yeasts come off the surfaces and enter the liquid," explains the winemaker, ankle deep in a container of tiny stems, seeds and crimson juice. "This represents how vintages were historically produced, but commercial producers introduce sulphur [dioxide] to kill the natural cultures and subsequently incorporate a commercially produced yeast."

Challenging Environments and Creative Approaches

A few doors down sprightly retiree Bob Reeve, who motivated Scofield to plant her vines, has assembled his friends to pick Chardonnay grapes from one hundred vines he has laid out neatly across two terraces. The former teacher, a northern English PE teacher who taught at the local university developed a passion for viticulture on annual sporting trips to France. But it is a difficult task to cultivate this particular variety in the dampness of the gorge, with temperature fluctuations sweeping in and out from the Bristol Channel. "I wanted to produce French-style vintages here, which is somewhat ambitious," admits Reeve with amusement. "Chardonnay is late to ripen and particularly vulnerable to fungal infections."

"My goal was creating 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 erect a barrier on