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Each 20 minutes or so, an ageing diesel train arrives at a graffiti-covered stop. Close by, a police siren cuts through the almost continuous road noise. Commuters rush by falling apart, ivy-covered garden fences as storm clouds form.

It is perhaps the least likely spot you expect to find a perfectly formed vineyard. However James Bayliss-Smith has managed to 40 mature vines heavy with plump purplish berries on a sprawling garden plot sandwiched between a row of historic homes and a commuter railway just above Bristol downtown.

"I've seen people concealing heroin or other items in those bushes," says Bayliss-Smith. "But you just get on with it ... and continue caring for your vines."

The cameraman, 46, a documentary cameraman who runs a fermented beverage company, is not the only urban winemaker. He has pulled together a loose collective of growers who produce vintage from four hidden urban vineyards nestled in back gardens and community plots throughout Bristol. The project is sufficiently underground to have an formal title so far, but the collective's WhatsApp group is called Vineyard Dreams.

City Wine Gardens Around the Globe

To date, the grower's allotment is the only one listed in the City Vineyard Network's upcoming global directory, which includes better-known urban wineries such as the eighteen hundred vines on the hillsides of Paris's historic Montmartre neighbourhood and over three thousand vines overlooking and inside the Italian city. Based in Italy charitable organization is at the forefront of a movement reviving city vineyards in historic wine-producing nations, but has discovered them throughout the globe, including cities in East Asia, Bangladesh and Central Asia.

"Grape gardens help urban areas stay more eco-friendly and more diverse. They preserve land from construction by establishing long-term, yielding agricultural units inside cities," says the association's president.

Like all wines, those produced in urban areas are a result of the soils the vines grow in, the vagaries of the climate and the people who tend the fruit. "Each vintage represents the charm, community, landscape and heritage of a city," notes the spokesperson.

Unknown Eastern European Grapes

Back in Bristol, the grower is in a urgent timeline to harvest the grapevines he grew from a cutting abandoned in his allotment by a Eastern European household. Should the precipitation arrives, then the birds may seize their chance to feast again. "Here we have the mystery Eastern European grape," he comments, as he removes damaged and rotten grapes from the shimmering bunches. "The variety remains uncertain their exact classification, but they're definitely disease-resistant. In contrast to premium grapes – Burgundy grapes, white wine grapes and additional renowned European varieties – you need not treat them with pesticides ... this is possibly a special variety that was bred by the Soviets."

Group Activities Throughout Bristol

Additional participants of the group are additionally taking advantage of bright periods between showers of autumn rain. At a rooftop garden overlooking the city's shimmering waterfront, where historic trading ships once bobbed with casks of vintage from Europe and Spain, Katy Grant is collecting her rondo grapes from approximately 50 vines. "I love the smell of the grapevines. The scent is so reminiscent," she says, stopping with a basket of grapes resting on her shoulder. "It's the scent of southern France when you open the car windows on vacation."

The humanitarian worker, fifty-two, who has spent over two decades working for charitable groups in war-torn regions, unexpectedly inherited the vineyard when she moved back to the UK from Kenya with her household in recent years. She experienced an overwhelming duty to maintain the vines in the yard of their new home. "This vineyard has previously survived three different owners," she explains. "I really like the idea of environmental care – of passing this on to someone else so they can continue producing from the soil."

Terraced Gardens and Traditional Production

A short walk away, the remaining cultivators of the group are hard at work on the steep inclines of Avon Gorge. Jo Scofield has established over one hundred fifty plants situated on ledges in her expansive property, which tumbles down towards the silty River Avon. "Visitors frequently express amazement," she notes, gesturing towards the interwoven grape garden. "It's astonishing to them they can see grapevine lines in a city street."

Currently, the filmmaker, 60, is picking clusters of deep violet dark berries from lines of plants slung across the hillside with the help of her child, her family member. The conservationist, a documentary producer who has contributed to streaming service's Great National Parks series and BBC Two's Gardeners' World, was motivated to plant grapes after seeing her neighbor's grapevines. She's discovered that amateurs can produce intriguing, enjoyable natural wine, which can command prices of more than £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 is quite on trend, but in reality it's reviving an traditional method of producing wine."

"When I tread the grapes, the various natural microorganisms come off the skins and enter the juice," says Scofield, ankle deep in a bucket of tiny stems, seeds and crimson juice. "That's how wines were historically produced, but commercial producers introduce sulphur [dioxide] to eliminate the wild yeast and subsequently add a lab-grown yeast."

Difficult Environments and Inventive Solutions

A few doors down active senior another cultivator, who inspired Scofield to plant her vines, has assembled his friends to harvest white wine varieties from one hundred vines he has arranged precisely across multiple levels. The former teacher, a Lancashire-born physical education instructor who worked at the local university developed a passion for wine on annual sporting trips to Europe. But it is a challenge to grow this particular variety in the humidity of the gorge, with temperature fluctuations sweeping in and out from the nearby estuary. "I aimed to make French-style vintages here, which is a bit bonkers," admits the retiree with a smile. "This variety is late to ripen and particularly vulnerable to fungal infections."

"I wanted to make Burgundian wines in this environment, which is a bit bonkers"

The unpredictable local weather is not the only problem faced by grape cultivators. The gardener has had to install a barrier on