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Each quarter of an hour or so, an ageing diesel-powered train pulls into a spray-painted stop. Close by, a police siren cuts through the near-constant road noise. Commuters rush by falling apart, ivy-draped garden fences as rain clouds form.

It is maybe the least likely spot you expect to find a perfectly formed vineyard. But James Bayliss-Smith has cultivated 40 mature vines heavy with plump purplish berries on a rambling garden plot situated between a row of historic homes and a local rail line just north of the city downtown.

"I've seen people hiding heroin or whatever in those bushes," states the grower. "But you just get on with it ... and continue caring for your grapevines."

Bayliss-Smith, forty-six, a documentary cameraman who also has a kombucha drinks business, is among several local vintner. He has organized a informal group of cultivators who make wine from several discreet city grape gardens nestled in private yards and community plots across Bristol. It is too clandestine to possess an official name yet, but the collective's messaging chat is named Vineyard Dreams.

City Vineyards Around the World

To date, Bayliss-Smith's plot is the sole location listed in the City Vineyard Network's forthcoming global directory, which includes better-known urban wineries such as the eighteen hundred vines on the hillsides of the French capital's historic artistic district neighbourhood and more than 3,000 vines overlooking and inside Turin. The Italian-based non-profit association is at the vanguard of a movement reviving city vineyards in historic wine-producing nations, but has identified them throughout the globe, including cities in Japan, South Asia and Uzbekistan.

"Vineyards assist cities stay greener and more diverse. These spaces preserve open space from construction by creating long-term, yielding agricultural units inside urban environments," says the association's president.

Similar to other vintages, those produced in urban areas are a result of the soils the plants grow in, the unpredictability of the climate and the individuals who tend the grapes. "Each vintage embodies the charm, local spirit, landscape and history of a urban center," adds the president.

Mystery Eastern European Grapes

Returning to Bristol, the grower is in a urgent timeline to harvest the vines he cultivated from a cutting left in his garden by a Eastern European household. Should the rain comes, then the pigeons may seize their chance to attack once more. "Here we have the mystery Eastern European grape," he says, as he removes bruised and mouldy berries from the shimmering clusters. "We don't really know their exact classification, but they're definitely hardy. In contrast to noble varieties – Burgundy grapes, white wine grapes and other famous European varieties – you need not treat them with pesticides ... this could be a unique cultivar that was bred by the Soviets."

Group Activities Throughout Bristol

Additional participants of the group are also making the most of bright periods between bursts of fall precipitation. At a rooftop garden with views of the city's glistening waterfront, where medieval merchant vessels once bobbed with barrels of wine from France and the Iberian peninsula, one cultivator is collecting her dark berries from about fifty vines. "I love the aroma of these vines. It is so reminiscent," she remarks, stopping with a container of grapes slung over her arm. "It's the scent of Provence when you open the car windows on vacation."

Grant, fifty-two, who has devoted more than 20 years working for humanitarian organizations in conflict zones, inadvertently took over the grape garden when she moved back to the UK from Kenya with her household in recent years. She experienced an overwhelming duty to look after the grapevines in the yard of their new home. "This plot has previously endured three different owners," she explains. "I deeply appreciate the concept of environmental care – of passing this on to someone else so they continue producing from the soil."

Terraced Gardens and Natural Winemaking

A short walk away, the final two members of the group are busily laboring on the steep inclines of Avon Gorge. Jo Scofield has cultivated over one hundred fifty plants perched on terraces in her expansive property, which tumbles down towards the silty River Avon. "People are always surprised," she notes, indicating the interwoven vineyard. "They can't believe they are viewing grapevine lines in a city street."

Currently, the filmmaker, 60, is harvesting clusters of dusty purple dark berries from rows of plants arranged along the hillside with the help of her daughter, Luca. The conservationist, a wildlife and conservation film-maker who has worked on Netflix's nature programming and BBC Two's gardening shows, was inspired to cultivate vines after seeing her neighbor's grapevines. She's discovered that amateurs can make interesting, enjoyable traditional vintage, which can command prices of upwards of seven pounds a glass in the growing number of wine bars focusing on minimal-intervention vintages. "It is deeply rewarding that you can truly create quality, traditional vintage," she states. "It is quite on trend, but really it's resurrecting an traditional method of making wine."

"During foot-stomping the fruit, the various wild yeasts come off the skins and enter the juice," explains the winemaker, ankle deep in a container of tiny stems, pips and red liquid. "This represents how vintages were made traditionally, but commercial producers introduce preservatives to kill the natural cultures and then add a commercially produced yeast."

Difficult Conditions and Inventive Approaches

In the immediate vicinity active senior another cultivator, who inspired Scofield to establish her vines, has assembled his companions to harvest Chardonnay grapes from the 100 vines he has laid out neatly across multiple levels. Reeve, a Lancashire-born physical education instructor who taught at the local university cultivated an interest in wine on annual sporting trips to Europe. However it is a difficult task to cultivate this particular variety in the humidity of the gorge, with cooling tides moving through from the nearby estuary. "I aimed to produce Burgundian wines in this location, which is somewhat ambitious," admits Reeve with a smile. "Chardonnay is late to ripen and very sensitive to mildew."

"I wanted to make Burgundian wines here, which is a bit bonkers"

The temperamental local weather is not the sole challenge faced by winegrowers. Reeve has been compelled to install a fence on