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Every 20 minutes or so, an older diesel-powered train arrives at a graffiti-covered stop. Nearby, a police siren cuts through the near-constant road noise. Commuters rush by falling apart, ivy-draped garden fences as storm clouds form.

It is perhaps the least likely spot you expect to find a well-established vineyard. However James Bayliss-Smith has cultivated 40 mature vines heavy with round mauve berries on a rambling allotment sandwiched between a row of historic homes and a commuter railway just north of the city town centre.

"I've noticed individuals hiding illegal substances or whatever in those bushes," says Bayliss-Smith. "Yet you simply continue ... and continue caring for your grapevines."

The cameraman, forty-six, a filmmaker who runs a fermented beverage company, is among several local vintner. He's pulled together a loose collective of growers who produce wine from four hidden city grape gardens nestled in back gardens and community plots throughout Bristol. The project is too clandestine to possess an official name yet, but the group's messaging chat is called Vineyard Dreams.

City Wine Gardens Around the World

So far, the grower's plot is the only one listed in the City Vineyard Network's forthcoming world atlas, which features better-known urban wineries such as the eighteen hundred plants on the slopes of the French capital's renowned artistic district neighbourhood and more than 3,000 vines with views of and within Turin. The Italian-based non-profit association is at the forefront of a initiative reviving city vineyards in traditional winemaking nations, but has discovered them all over the globe, including urban centers in Japan, South Asia and Central Asia.

"Grape gardens help cities stay more eco-friendly and more diverse. These spaces protect open space from construction by establishing long-term, productive farming plots inside cities," explains the organization's leader.

Similar to other vintages, those created in urban areas are a product of the soils the vines thrive in, the unpredictability of the weather and the people who tend the grapes. "A bottle of wine embodies the beauty, local spirit, environment and heritage of a city," adds the spokesperson.

Mystery Polish Grapes

Back in the city, Bayliss-Smith is in a race against time to gather the vines he cultivated from a cutting abandoned in his garden by a Eastern European household. If the rain comes, then the birds may seize their chance to attack again. "This is the mystery Polish variety," he says, as he cleans bruised and rotten grapes from the shimmering bunches. "We don't really know what variety they are, but they're definitely hardy. Unlike noble varieties – Pinot Noir, white wine grapes and other famous European varieties – you don't have to treat them with chemicals ... this is possibly a special variety that was bred by the Eastern Bloc."

Group Activities Across the City

The other members of the collective are also making the most of bright periods between showers of autumn rain. On the terrace overlooking Bristol's shimmering harbour, where historic trading ships once bobbed with casks of wine from Europe and the Iberian peninsula, Katy Grant is collecting her dark berries from about fifty plants. "I adore the smell of the grapevines. It is so evocative," she remarks, stopping with a basket of fruit slung over her arm. "It's the scent of Provence when you open the car windows on holiday."

Grant, fifty-two, who has spent over 20 years working for humanitarian organizations in conflict zones, unexpectedly inherited the grape garden 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 vineyard has already endured three different owners," she explains. "I really like the idea of environmental care – of passing this on to someone else so they continue producing from the soil."

Terraced Vineyards and Traditional Winemaking

A short walk away, the remaining cultivators of the group are busily laboring on the precipitous slopes of the local river valley. One filmmaker has cultivated more than one hundred fifty plants situated on terraces in her wild half-acre garden, which tumbles down towards the silty River Avon. "People are always surprised," she says, indicating the tangled grape garden. "It's astonishing to them they can see grapevine lines in a city street."

Today, Scofield, sixty, is harvesting clusters of deep violet dark berries from rows of plants slung across the cliff-side with the assistance of her daughter, Luca. The conservationist, a documentary producer who has contributed to streaming service's nature programming and BBC Two's Gardeners' World, was inspired to plant grapes after seeing her neighbour's vines. She's discovered that amateurs can produce intriguing, enjoyable traditional vintage, which can command prices of upwards of seven pounds a glass in the increasing quantity of wine bars specialising in low-processing wines. "It is incredibly satisfying that you can actually make good, natural wine," she states. "It's very on trend, but in reality it's reviving an traditional method of making wine."

"When I tread the fruit, all the natural microorganisms are released from the surfaces and enter the liquid," explains Scofield, ankle deep in a bucket of small branches, pips and red liquid. "That's how wines were made traditionally, but commercial producers add preservatives to kill the wild yeast and subsequently add a commercially produced yeast."

Challenging Conditions and Inventive Approaches

In the immediate vicinity active senior Bob Reeve, who inspired his neighbor to establish her grapevines, has assembled his companions to harvest Chardonnay grapes from the 100 plants he has laid out neatly across multiple levels. Reeve, a Lancashire-born physical education instructor who worked at Bristol University cultivated an interest in viticulture on regular visits to Europe. However it is a difficult task to grow Chardonnay grapes in the humidity of the valley, with cooling tides sweeping in and out from the nearby estuary. "I aimed to make Burgundian wines in this location, which is a bit bonkers," says Reeve with a smile. "This variety is slow-maturing and particularly vulnerable to mildew."

"My goal was creating European-style vintages here, which is a bit bonkers"

The unpredictable local weather is not the only challenge encountered by grape cultivators. Reeve has had to install a fence on