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Every 20 minutes or so, an ageing diesel-powered train arrives at a spray-painted stop. Nearby, a law enforcement alarm pierces the almost continuous road noise. Commuters hurry past falling apart, ivy-covered fencing panels as storm clouds form.

This is perhaps the least likely spot you expect to find a perfectly formed grape-growing plot. However James Bayliss-Smith has cultivated four dozen established plants heavy with round purplish grapes on a sprawling allotment situated between a row of 1930s houses and a commuter railway just north of Bristol downtown.

"I've noticed people hiding heroin or whatever in those bushes," states the grower. "Yet you just get on with it ... and keep tending to your grapevines."

The cameraman, forty-six, a filmmaker who runs a kombucha drinks business, is not the only urban winemaker. He's organized a loose collective of growers who make vintage from several discreet urban vineyards nestled in back gardens and community plots throughout Bristol. It is sufficiently underground to have an official name so far, but the collective's WhatsApp group is named Vineyard Dreams.

Urban Wine Gardens Across the World

So far, the grower's plot is the sole location listed in the City Vineyard Network's forthcoming global directory, which includes better-known city vineyards such as the eighteen hundred plants on the slopes of Paris's historic artistic district neighbourhood and over three thousand grapevines with views of and within the Italian city. Based in Italy non-profit association is at the forefront of a movement reviving city vineyards in traditional winemaking 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 ecologically varied. They protect open space from construction by creating long-term, productive farming plots within cities," says the organization's leader.

Similar to other vintages, those produced in urban areas are a result of the soils the plants grow in, the vagaries of the weather and the people who care for the grapes. "Each vintage represents the charm, local spirit, environment and heritage of a urban center," notes the president.

Mystery Eastern European Variety

Back in Bristol, Bayliss-Smith is in a race against time to harvest the vines he cultivated from a plant left in his allotment by a Polish family. If the precipitation comes, then the pigeons may seize their chance to feast once more. "This is the enigmatic Polish variety," he says, as he cleans bruised and rotten grapes from the shimmering clusters. "The variety remains uncertain what variety they are, but they're definitely hardy. In contrast to premium grapes – Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and other famous French grapes – you need not spray them with chemicals ... this is possibly a special variety that was bred by the Eastern Bloc."

Collective Activities Across Bristol

Additional participants of the collective are also taking advantage of sunny interludes between bursts of fall precipitation. At a rooftop garden with views of Bristol's glistening harbour, where medieval merchant vessels once floated with barrels of wine from Europe and the Iberian peninsula, Katy Grant is harvesting her dark berries from approximately fifty plants. "I adore the aroma of these vines. It is so reminiscent," she says, stopping with a container of fruit resting on her shoulder. "It recalls the fragrance of southern France when you open the vehicle windows on vacation."

Grant, 52, who has devoted more than 20 years working for humanitarian organizations in war-torn regions, unexpectedly took over the vineyard when she returned to the United Kingdom from East Africa with her household in recent years. She experienced an overwhelming duty to look after the grapevines in the garden of their new home. "This plot has already survived three different owners," she says. "I deeply appreciate the idea of natural stewardship – of passing this on to someone else so they can keep cultivating from this land."

Terraced Gardens and Traditional Winemaking

A short walk away, the remaining cultivators of the group are hard at work on the steep inclines of the local river valley. One filmmaker has established over 150 plants situated on terraces in her wild half-acre garden, which descends towards the silty local waterway. "Visitors frequently express amazement," she notes, gesturing towards the tangled grape garden. "They can't believe they are viewing rows of vines in a urban neighborhood."

Currently, Scofield, sixty, is picking bunches of deep violet dark berries from rows of vines slung across the cliff-side with the assistance of her child, her family member. Scofield, a wildlife and conservation film-maker who has contributed to streaming service's Great National Parks series and television network's gardening shows, was motivated to cultivate vines after seeing her neighbour's grapevines. She's discovered that hobbyists can make intriguing, enjoyable natural wine, which can command prices of upwards of £7 a serving in the growing number of wine bars specialising in minimal-intervention vintages. "It is deeply rewarding that you can truly make good, natural wine," she states. "It is quite fashionable, but in reality it's resurrecting an traditional method of making wine."

"When I tread the grapes, all the wild yeasts come off the skins and enter the liquid," explains Scofield, partially submerged in a container of tiny stems, seeds and crimson juice. "This represents how wines were made traditionally, but commercial producers introduce sulphur [dioxide] to eliminate the wild yeast and then incorporate a lab-grown yeast."

Difficult Environments and Inventive Approaches

A few doors down sprightly retiree another cultivator, who inspired his neighbor to establish her vines, has assembled his companions to pick Chardonnay grapes from the 100 plants he has arranged precisely across two terraces. Reeve, a Lancashire-born physical education instructor who taught at Bristol University cultivated an interest in wine on regular visits to Europe. However it is a difficult task to grow this particular variety in the dampness of the gorge, with cooling tides sweeping in and out from the nearby estuary. "I wanted to make French-style vintages here, which is somewhat ambitious," admits the retiree with amusement. "This variety is late to ripen and very sensitive to fungal infections."

"My goal was creating Burgundian wines in this environment, which is rather ambitious"

The unpredictable Bristol climate is not the only challenge encountered by grape cultivators. The gardener has been compelled to install a barrier on