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Every quarter of an hour or so, an ageing diesel train arrives at a graffiti-covered stop. Nearby, a police siren pierces the near-constant traffic drone. Daily travelers rush by falling apart, ivy-draped garden fences as storm clouds gather.

This is perhaps the last place you anticipate to find a perfectly formed grape-growing plot. However one local grower has managed to 40 mature vines heavy with plump purplish berries on a rambling garden plot situated between a line of historic homes and a commuter railway just north of Bristol town centre.

"I've noticed individuals hiding illegal substances or whatever in the shrubbery," states the grower. "Yet you just get on with it ... and keep tending to your grapevines."

Bayliss-Smith, 46, a filmmaker who also has a fermented beverage company, is not the only local vintner. He has organized a loose collective of growers who make vintage from several hidden urban vineyards nestled in private yards and community plots throughout Bristol. It is too clandestine to have an formal title yet, but the collective's messaging chat is called Grape Expectations.

Urban Wine Gardens Across the Globe

So far, the grower's allotment is the sole location registered in the Urban Vineyards Association's upcoming world atlas, which features more famous city vineyards such as the 1,800 plants on the slopes of the French capital's renowned artistic district area and more than 3,000 grapevines overlooking and inside Turin. Based in Italy charitable organization is at the forefront of a initiative reviving city vineyards in traditional winemaking nations, but has discovered them all over the world, including cities in East Asia, South Asia and Central Asia.

"Vineyards help urban areas stay more eco-friendly and ecologically varied. These spaces protect land from construction by establishing permanent, productive agricultural units within cities," says the association's president.

Like all wines, those produced in cities are a product of the soils the plants grow in, the unpredictability of the climate and the individuals who tend the grapes. "Each vintage represents the charm, local spirit, environment and heritage of a city," adds the president.

Unknown Eastern European Grapes

Back in Bristol, Bayliss-Smith is in a urgent timeline to gather the grapevines he grew from a plant abandoned in his allotment by a Polish family. If the precipitation comes, then the pigeons may take advantage to attack again. "Here we have the mystery Eastern European grape," he says, as he removes damaged and rotten grapes from the glistering bunches. "We don't really know their exact classification, but they are certainly disease-resistant. Unlike premium grapes – Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and additional renowned French grapes – you need not spray them with chemicals ... this could be a special variety that was developed by the Eastern Bloc."

Collective Activities Across Bristol

The other members of the collective are additionally taking advantage 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 Europe and the Iberian peninsula, one cultivator is harvesting her dark berries from about fifty plants. "I love the smell of the grapevines. It is so reminiscent," she remarks, stopping with a basket of grapes resting on her arm. "It recalls the fragrance of southern France when you roll down the car windows on vacation."

Grant, fifty-two, who has devoted more than 20 years working for charitable groups in conflict zones, inadvertently inherited the grape garden when she moved back to the UK from Kenya with her family in recent years. She experienced an overwhelming duty to maintain the vines in the garden of their new home. "This vineyard has already survived 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 this land."

Terraced Gardens and Natural Winemaking

A short walk away, the final two members of the collective are hard at work on the precipitous slopes of Avon Gorge. Jo Scofield has established more than one hundred fifty plants situated on ledges in her wild half-acre garden, which tumbles down towards the muddy local waterway. "Visitors frequently express amazement," she notes, gesturing towards the tangled grape garden. "It's astonishing to them they are viewing grapevine lines in a city street."

Today, Scofield, 60, is harvesting clusters of dusty purple Rondo grapes from lines of vines arranged along the hillside with the assistance of her daughter, her family member. The conservationist, a wildlife and conservation film-maker who has worked on Netflix's nature programming and television network's gardening shows, was inspired to plant grapes after seeing her neighbor's vines. She's discovered that hobbyists can produce intriguing, pleasurable natural wine, which can command prices of more than £7 a serving in the growing number of establishments focusing on minimal-intervention wines. "It's just incredibly satisfying that you can actually create quality, natural wine," she states. "It is quite on trend, but really it's resurrecting an old way of making vintage."

"When I tread the grapes, all the wild yeasts come off the skins into the juice," explains the winemaker, partially submerged in a container of small branches, pips and red liquid. "This represents how vintages were historically produced, but industrial wineries add sulphur [dioxide] to eliminate the natural cultures and then incorporate a lab-grown culture."

Challenging Environments and Inventive Solutions

In the immediate vicinity active senior another cultivator, who motivated his neighbor to establish her vines, has gathered his friends to pick white wine varieties from one hundred vines he has arranged precisely across two terraces. The former teacher, 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 challenge to grow this particular variety in the humidity of the valley, with temperature fluctuations sweeping in and out from the nearby estuary. "I aimed to make French-style vintages in this location, which is a bit bonkers," admits Reeve with a smile. "Chardonnay is late to ripen and very sensitive to mildew."

"I wanted to make Burgundian wines here, which is rather ambitious"

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