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Each 20 minutes or so, an older diesel-powered train arrives at a spray-painted station. Nearby, a law enforcement alarm cuts through the almost continuous traffic drone. Commuters hurry past collapsing, ivy-draped garden fences as rain clouds gather.

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

"I've noticed people concealing illegal substances or other items in the shrubbery," states Bayliss-Smith. "Yet you just get on with it ... and continue caring for your vines."

Bayliss-Smith, forty-six, a documentary cameraman who runs a kombucha drinks business, is among several urban winemaker. He has organized a informal group of growers who make wine from several hidden urban vineyards tucked away in private yards and allotments across Bristol. The project is sufficiently underground to have an formal title yet, but the group's WhatsApp group is named Grape Expectations.

Urban Wine Gardens Across the World

To date, Bayliss-Smith's plot is the sole location listed in the Urban Vineyards Association's forthcoming global directory, which includes more famous city vineyards such as the 1,800 plants on the hillsides of Paris's historic artistic district neighbourhood and over three thousand grapevines with views of and inside the Italian city. Based in Italy charitable organization is at the vanguard of a movement reviving urban grape cultivation in traditional winemaking nations, but has identified them all over the globe, including urban centers in Japan, South Asia and Central Asia.

"Grape gardens help urban areas stay greener and ecologically varied. They protect open space from construction by establishing long-term, yielding agricultural units inside cities," says the association's president.

Similar to other vintages, those produced in cities are a product of the earth the plants thrive in, the vagaries of the climate and the individuals who tend the grapes. "A bottle of wine represents the beauty, local spirit, environment and heritage of a city," adds the spokesperson.

Unknown Eastern European Grapes

Returning to Bristol, the grower is in a urgent timeline to gather the grapevines he grew from a plant left in his garden by a Eastern European household. Should the rain arrives, then the birds may seize their chance to attack once more. "This is the mystery Polish variety," he says, as he cleans bruised and mouldy berries from the glistering bunches. "The variety remains uncertain their exact classification, but they are certainly disease-resistant. Unlike noble varieties – Pinot Noir, white wine grapes and other famous European varieties – you need not treat them with pesticides ... this is possibly a unique cultivar that was bred by the Eastern Bloc."

Collective Efforts Across Bristol

The other members of the group are additionally making the most of bright periods between showers of autumn rain. On the terrace with views of the city's shimmering harbour, where historic trading ships once bobbed with barrels of wine from Europe and the Iberian peninsula, Katy Grant is collecting her dark berries from about fifty plants. "I adore the smell of these vines. It is so evocative," she says, pausing with a container of fruit slung over her arm. "It recalls the fragrance of Provence when you roll down the car windows on holiday."

The humanitarian worker, fifty-two, who has devoted more than two decades working for humanitarian organizations in war-torn regions, unexpectedly took over the vineyard 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 recently acquired property. "This vineyard has previously survived three different owners," she says. "I really like the idea of natural stewardship – of passing this on to someone else so they can continue producing from this land."

Sloping Gardens and Natural Production

A short walk away, the final two members of the group 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 expansive property, which descends towards the silty River Avon. "People are always surprised," she says, gesturing towards the interwoven vineyard. "They can't believe they are viewing grapevine lines in a city street."

Today, Scofield, sixty, is harvesting clusters of deep violet dark berries from rows of vines slung across the cliff-side 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 gardening shows, was motivated to plant grapes after seeing her neighbour's grapevines. She's discovered that amateurs can make intriguing, enjoyable traditional vintage, which can command prices of upwards of seven pounds a serving in the growing number of establishments specialising in minimal-intervention wines. "It's just deeply rewarding that you can truly make quality, natural wine," she says. "It's very on trend, but in reality it's resurrecting an old way of producing wine."

"When I tread the fruit, all the wild yeasts come off the skins into the juice," explains the winemaker, ankle deep in a container of small branches, seeds and crimson juice. "This represents how wines were historically produced, but commercial producers add preservatives to eliminate the natural cultures and subsequently add a commercially produced culture."

Difficult Environments and Creative Approaches

A few doors down sprightly retiree another cultivator, who motivated Scofield to plant her vines, has gathered his friends to pick Chardonnay grapes from one hundred vines he has arranged precisely across two terraces. Reeve, a northern English PE teacher who worked at the local university cultivated an interest in viticulture on annual sporting trips to Europe. However it is a difficult task to cultivate Chardonnay grapes in the humidity of the valley, with temperature fluctuations sweeping in and out from the Bristol Channel. "I wanted to produce Burgundian wines in this location, which is somewhat ambitious," says the retiree with a smile. "Chardonnay is late to ripen and very sensitive to mildew."

"I wanted to make European-style vintages in this environment, which is a bit bonkers"

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