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Each quarter of an hour or so, an ageing diesel train pulls into a graffiti-covered stop. Close by, a law enforcement alarm pierces the almost continuous road noise. Daily travelers hurry past collapsing, ivy-draped fencing panels as rain clouds form.

This is perhaps the least likely spot you anticipate to find a perfectly formed grape-growing plot. However James Bayliss-Smith has cultivated four dozen established plants heavy with plump mauve berries on a sprawling allotment situated between a line of historic homes and a commuter railway just north of the city town centre.

"I've noticed individuals hiding heroin or other items in those bushes," says the grower. "Yet you simply continue ... and continue caring for your vines."

Bayliss-Smith, forty-six, a documentary cameraman who also has a kombucha drinks business, is not the only urban winemaker. He's pulled together a informal group of cultivators who produce wine from several hidden urban vineyards nestled in private yards and allotments throughout the city. It is sufficiently underground to have an official name yet, but the group's messaging chat is called Grape Expectations.

Urban Vineyards Across the Globe

To date, Bayliss-Smith's allotment is the only one registered in the Urban Vineyards Association's upcoming world atlas, which features more famous city vineyards such as the eighteen hundred vines on the hillsides of the French capital's historic artistic district neighbourhood and over 3,000 grapevines with views of and inside Turin. The Italian-based non-profit association is at the forefront of a movement reviving urban grape cultivation in historic wine-producing countries, but has identified them throughout the world, including cities in East Asia, South Asia and Uzbekistan.

"Grape gardens help urban areas remain more eco-friendly and ecologically varied. They preserve open space from construction by establishing permanent, yielding agricultural units inside urban environments," says the organization's leader.

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

Unknown Polish Grapes

Back in the city, Bayliss-Smith is in a urgent timeline to harvest the grapevines he cultivated from a plant abandoned in his allotment by a Eastern European household. Should the rain comes, then the birds may take advantage to feast once more. "Here we have the mystery Eastern European variety," he says, as he removes damaged and rotten berries from the shimmering clusters. "The variety remains uncertain their exact classification, but they are certainly disease-resistant. Unlike noble varieties – Pinot Noir, white wine grapes and other famous French grapes – you need not spray them with pesticides ... this is possibly a special variety that was bred by the Soviets."

Collective Activities Across the City

Additional participants of the collective are also making the most of sunny interludes between showers of fall precipitation. On the terrace overlooking Bristol's shimmering waterfront, where medieval merchant vessels once bobbed with barrels of vintage from France and Spain, Katy Grant is collecting her rondo grapes from approximately 50 vines. "I love the smell of the grapevines. It is so reminiscent," she says, stopping with a basket of grapes resting on her arm. "It recalls the fragrance of southern France when you roll down the vehicle windows on holiday."

The humanitarian worker, fifty-two, who has devoted more than two decades working for charitable groups in conflict zones, inadvertently inherited the vineyard when she returned 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 plot has previously survived multiple proprietors," she says. "I really like the idea of environmental care – of passing this on to someone else so they continue producing from the soil."

Terraced Gardens and Natural Production

Nearby, the final two members of the collective are busily laboring on the precipitous slopes of the local river valley. One filmmaker has established over 150 vines situated on terraces in her expansive property, which descends towards the muddy local waterway. "People are always surprised," she notes, indicating the tangled vineyard. "They can't believe they are viewing grapevine lines in a urban neighborhood."

Currently, the filmmaker, 60, is picking clusters of deep violet dark berries from rows of vines slung across the cliff-side with the help of her daughter, her family member. The conservationist, a wildlife and conservation film-maker who has contributed to streaming service's Great National Parks series and BBC Two's Gardeners' World, was motivated to plant grapes after seeing her neighbor's vines. She's discovered that amateurs can make interesting, pleasurable natural wine, which can sell for upwards of £7 a serving in the increasing quantity of wine bars focusing on minimal-intervention vintages. "It is deeply rewarding that you can truly make good, natural wine," she says. "It's very on trend, but really it's resurrecting an old way of producing wine."

"When I tread the grapes, all the natural microorganisms are released from the surfaces and enter the liquid," explains the winemaker, partially submerged in a container of tiny stems, pips and red liquid. "That's how wines were historically produced, but commercial producers add sulphur [dioxide] to kill the natural cultures and then add a commercially produced culture."

Difficult Environments and Inventive Solutions

A few doors down sprightly retiree Bob Reeve, who inspired Scofield to plant her grapevines, has gathered his friends to pick Chardonnay grapes from the 100 plants he has laid out neatly across multiple levels. The former teacher, a Lancashire-born PE teacher who taught at the local university cultivated an interest in viticulture on regular visits to France. But it is a difficult task to cultivate this particular variety in the dampness of the gorge, with temperature fluctuations sweeping in and out from the Bristol Channel. "I wanted to make French-style vintages in this location, which is somewhat ambitious," says Reeve with amusement. "Chardonnay is late to ripen and particularly vulnerable to fungal infections."

"My goal was creating Burgundian wines here, which is rather ambitious"

The temperamental local weather is not the only challenge encountered by winegrowers. The gardener has been compelled to install a barrier on