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Every 20 minutes or so, an ageing diesel train arrives at a graffiti-covered station. Nearby, a police siren pierces the almost continuous traffic drone. Commuters rush by collapsing, ivy-draped garden fences as rain clouds gather.

It is perhaps the least likely spot you anticipate to find a well-established grape-growing plot. But one local grower has cultivated four dozen established plants heavy with round mauve grapes on a rambling garden plot sandwiched between a line of 1930s houses and a commuter railway just above Bristol downtown.

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

Bayliss-Smith, forty-six, a filmmaker who runs a kombucha drinks business, is among several urban winemaker. He's pulled together a loose collective of growers who make vintage from four hidden urban vineyards tucked away in back gardens and community plots across the city. The project is too clandestine to possess an formal title yet, but the collective's WhatsApp group is called Grape Expectations.

City Vineyards Across the World

So far, Bayliss-Smith's plot is the sole location listed in the City Vineyard Network's upcoming global directory, which includes more famous urban wineries such as the 1,800 vines on the hillsides of Paris's renowned Montmartre area and more than three thousand grapevines 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 discovered them all over the world, including cities in East Asia, South Asia and Uzbekistan.

"Vineyards assist cities stay greener and more diverse. They protect land from construction by establishing permanent, yielding farming plots inside urban environments," explains the organization's leader.

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

Mystery Polish Grapes

Back in Bristol, Bayliss-Smith is in a race against time to harvest the grapevines he cultivated from a plant abandoned in his allotment by a Polish family. Should the precipitation arrives, then the pigeons may take advantage to attack once more. "Here we have the enigmatic Polish grape," he says, as he cleans bruised and rotten grapes from the shimmering clusters. "We don't really know what variety they are, but they are certainly disease-resistant. Unlike noble varieties – Burgundy grapes, Chardonnay and other famous French grapes – you need not spray them with pesticides ... this is possibly a special variety that was developed by the Soviets."

Collective Activities Throughout the City

Additional participants of the group are also making the most of sunny interludes between bursts of fall precipitation. At a rooftop garden with views of the city's shimmering waterfront, where historic trading ships once floated with casks of wine from France and Spain, Katy Grant is collecting her rondo grapes from approximately fifty plants. "I adore the smell of these vines. It is so reminiscent," she says, pausing with a container of grapes slung over her shoulder. "It's the scent of southern France when you open the car windows on vacation."

Grant, fifty-two, who has devoted more than two decades working for charitable groups in conflict zones, unexpectedly inherited the vineyard when she returned to the UK from East Africa with her family in 2018. She felt an overwhelming duty to look after the vines in the garden of their recently acquired property. "This vineyard has already survived three different owners," she says. "I really like the idea of natural stewardship – of handing this down to someone else so they continue producing from this land."

Sloping Gardens and Traditional Production

A short walk away, the final two members of the group are hard at work on the steep inclines of Avon Gorge. One filmmaker has cultivated over one hundred fifty vines perched on ledges in her expansive property, which tumbles down towards the muddy River Avon. "Visitors frequently express amazement," she notes, gesturing towards the tangled grape garden. "They can't believe they are viewing grapevine lines in a city street."

Today, Scofield, sixty, is picking bunches of deep violet Rondo grapes from lines of vines slung across the cliff-side with the help of her daughter, Luca. Scofield, a wildlife and conservation film-maker who has contributed to streaming service's Great National Parks series and television network's Gardeners' World, was motivated to plant grapes after observing her neighbor's vines. She's discovered that hobbyists can produce interesting, enjoyable traditional vintage, which can command prices of upwards of seven pounds a glass in the increasing quantity of wine bars focusing on minimal-intervention vintages. "It is deeply rewarding that you can actually make good, traditional vintage," she states. "It's very fashionable, but really it's resurrecting an traditional method of making vintage."

"During foot-stomping the grapes, the various natural microorganisms come off the skins and enter the liquid," explains the winemaker, partially submerged in a bucket of tiny stems, pips and crimson juice. "That's how vintages were historically produced, but commercial producers introduce sulphur [dioxide] to eliminate the natural cultures and subsequently incorporate a lab-grown culture."

Difficult Environments and Inventive Solutions

A few doors down sprightly retiree another cultivator, who motivated his neighbor to establish her grapevines, has assembled his friends to pick Chardonnay grapes from one hundred vines he has arranged precisely across two terraces. Reeve, a Lancashire-born PE teacher who taught at Bristol University developed a passion for viticulture on regular visits to Europe. However it is a difficult task to grow Chardonnay grapes in the dampness of the gorge, with cooling tides sweeping in and out from the Bristol Channel. "I aimed to make Burgundian wines here, which is somewhat ambitious," admits the retiree with amusement. "This variety is slow-maturing and very sensitive to mildew."

"My goal was creating European-style vintages in this environment, which is rather ambitious"

The temperamental Bristol climate is not the sole challenge faced by winegrowers. The gardener has had to erect a fence on