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Every 20 minutes or so, an ageing diesel-powered train pulls into a spray-painted station. Nearby, a law enforcement alarm pierces the near-constant road noise. Daily travelers rush by falling apart, ivy-covered fencing panels as storm clouds form.

This is perhaps the least likely spot you expect to find a perfectly formed vineyard. But one local grower has cultivated 40 mature vines heavy with plump purplish grapes on a rambling garden plot situated between a line of 1930s houses and a local rail line just north of Bristol town centre.

"I've seen people concealing heroin or whatever in those bushes," says the grower. "But you simply continue ... and continue caring for your grapevines."

Bayliss-Smith, 46, a documentary cameraman who also has a fermented beverage company, is among several local vintner. He's pulled together a loose collective of cultivators who produce vintage from four discreet urban vineyards tucked away in back gardens and community plots across Bristol. It is sufficiently underground to have an formal title yet, but the group's WhatsApp group is called Grape Expectations.

City Wine Gardens Across the Globe

So far, Bayliss-Smith's allotment is the only one listed in the Urban Vineyards Association's forthcoming world atlas, which features more famous urban wineries such as the 1,800 plants on the slopes of the French capital's renowned Montmartre neighbourhood and over three thousand vines overlooking and within the Italian city. The Italian-based charitable organization is at the forefront of a initiative reviving city vineyards in traditional winemaking countries, but has identified them all over the globe, including cities in East Asia, South Asia and Central Asia.

"Vineyards assist cities remain more eco-friendly and ecologically varied. They protect land from construction by creating permanent, productive agricultural units within cities," explains the organization's leader.

Like all wines, those produced in cities are a product of the earth the plants thrive in, the vagaries of the climate and the people who tend the grapes. "Each vintage embodies the charm, community, landscape and heritage of a city," notes the spokesperson.

Unknown Eastern European Grapes

Back in the city, Bayliss-Smith is in a race against time to gather the grapevines he cultivated from a cutting abandoned in his allotment by a Eastern European household. If the rain comes, then the birds may take advantage to attack once more. "This is the enigmatic Eastern European grape," he says, as he cleans bruised and mouldy berries from the glistering bunches. "The variety remains uncertain what variety they are, but they are certainly disease-resistant. In contrast to premium grapes – Burgundy grapes, white wine grapes and additional renowned French grapes – you need not spray them with pesticides ... this could be a special variety that was bred by the Soviets."

Group Activities Throughout Bristol

The other members of the group are additionally making the most of bright periods between showers of autumn rain. On the terrace overlooking the city's shimmering waterfront, where historic trading ships once bobbed with barrels of wine from France and Spain, one cultivator is harvesting her dark berries from approximately 50 vines. "I love the smell of these vines. It is so reminiscent," she says, pausing with a container of grapes resting on her shoulder. "It's the scent of Provence when you roll down the vehicle windows on holiday."

The humanitarian worker, fifty-two, who has spent over two decades working for charitable groups in conflict zones, inadvertently inherited the vineyard when she returned to the United Kingdom from East Africa with her family in recent years. She experienced an overwhelming duty to maintain the grapevines in the yard of their recently acquired property. "This plot has already endured three different owners," she says. "I deeply appreciate the idea of environmental care – of passing this on to someone else so they keep cultivating from the soil."

Sloping Vineyards and Traditional Winemaking

Nearby, the remaining cultivators of the collective are hard at work on the precipitous slopes of Avon Gorge. Jo Scofield has established over one hundred fifty plants situated on terraces in her wild half-acre garden, which tumbles down towards the silty local waterway. "People are always surprised," she notes, indicating the interwoven vineyard. "It's astonishing to them they can see rows of vines in a urban neighborhood."

Today, Scofield, sixty, is picking clusters of deep violet dark berries from lines of vines arranged along the hillside with the help of her daughter, her family member. The conservationist, a documentary producer who has contributed to streaming service'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 hobbyists can produce intriguing, pleasurable natural wine, which can sell for more than seven pounds a serving in the increasing quantity of establishments specialising in low-processing wines. "It's just incredibly satisfying that you can truly create quality, traditional vintage," she says. "It's very fashionable, but in reality it's reviving an traditional method of making vintage."

"During foot-stomping the grapes, all the natural microorganisms are released from the skins into the liquid," explains Scofield, ankle deep in a bucket of small branches, pips and crimson juice. "That's how wines were historically produced, but commercial producers add sulphur [dioxide] to eliminate the natural cultures and subsequently incorporate a lab-grown yeast."

Difficult Environments and Creative Solutions

In the immediate vicinity sprightly retiree another cultivator, who inspired Scofield to establish her vines, has assembled his companions to pick Chardonnay grapes from the 100 plants he has laid out neatly across multiple levels. Reeve, a northern English physical education instructor who taught at Bristol University developed a passion for wine on annual sporting trips to Europe. However it is a challenge to cultivate Chardonnay grapes in the humidity of the gorge, with temperature fluctuations sweeping in and out from the nearby estuary. "I aimed to produce Burgundian wines here, which is a bit bonkers," admits Reeve with a smile. "This variety is late to ripen and particularly vulnerable to mildew."

"My goal was creating European-style vintages here, which is a bit bonkers"

The unpredictable local weather is not the only problem encountered by winegrowers. The gardener has had to erect a barrier on