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Each quarter of an hour or so, an older diesel-powered train pulls into a spray-painted station. Nearby, a law enforcement alarm cuts through the almost continuous traffic drone. Commuters rush by falling apart, ivy-draped fencing panels as storm clouds gather.

This is perhaps the last place you anticipate to find a well-established vineyard. But James Bayliss-Smith has cultivated four dozen established plants sagging with round purplish grapes on a rambling allotment sandwiched between a row of 1930s houses and a commuter railway just north of the city town centre.

"I've seen people concealing heroin or whatever in those bushes," states the grower. "Yet you simply continue ... and continue caring for your grapevines."

The cameraman, 46, a documentary cameraman who runs a fermented beverage company, is not the only local vintner. He has organized a loose collective of growers who make wine from several hidden urban vineyards nestled in back gardens and allotments across the city. The project is too clandestine to possess an formal title so far, but the collective's messaging chat is called Vineyard Dreams.

Urban Wine Gardens Across the World

So far, Bayliss-Smith's allotment is the sole location registered in the City Vineyard Network's upcoming world atlas, which includes more famous urban wineries such as the 1,800 plants on the slopes of Paris's historic Montmartre neighbourhood and more than three thousand vines with views of and inside Turin. Based in Italy charitable organization is at the forefront of a movement re-establishing urban grape cultivation in traditional winemaking nations, but has identified them all over the world, including cities in Japan, Bangladesh and Uzbekistan.

"Vineyards assist cities remain greener and ecologically varied. They preserve open space from development by creating permanent, productive agricultural units inside cities," explains the organization's leader.

Like all wines, those created in urban areas are a product of the earth the plants grow in, the vagaries of the weather and the people who care for the fruit. "A bottle of wine represents the charm, community, landscape and heritage of a urban center," adds the president.

Mystery Eastern European Variety

Returning to the city, Bayliss-Smith is in a urgent timeline to harvest the grapevines he grew from a cutting abandoned in his garden by a Polish family. If the precipitation comes, then the birds may take advantage to feast again. "Here we have the mystery Eastern European variety," he comments, as he cleans damaged and mouldy berries from the shimmering clusters. "We don't really know their exact classification, but they are certainly disease-resistant. In contrast to premium grapes – Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and additional renowned French grapes – you don't have to spray them with chemicals ... this is possibly a unique cultivar that was bred by the Eastern Bloc."

Collective Efforts Across the City

Additional participants of the group are also taking advantage of sunny interludes between showers of fall precipitation. On the terrace overlooking the city's shimmering waterfront, where medieval merchant vessels once bobbed with casks of vintage from France and Spain, one cultivator is harvesting her dark berries from about fifty vines. "I love the smell of the grapevines. The scent is so reminiscent," she says, stopping with a container of grapes slung over her shoulder. "It recalls the fragrance of southern France when you open the vehicle windows on holiday."

Grant, fifty-two, who has spent over 20 years working for charitable groups in conflict zones, inadvertently inherited the grape garden when she returned to the UK from East Africa with her household in 2018. She felt an overwhelming duty to look after the grapevines in the garden of their new home. "This plot has previously survived three different owners," she explains. "I really like the concept of environmental care – of passing this on to someone else so they keep cultivating from this land."

Terraced Vineyards and Traditional Winemaking

A short walk away, the final two members of the group are busily laboring on the steep inclines of Avon Gorge. One filmmaker has established over one hundred fifty vines perched on ledges in her expansive property, which descends towards the silty River Avon. "Visitors frequently express amazement," she notes, indicating the tangled grape garden. "It's astonishing to them they can see rows of vines in a urban neighborhood."

Currently, Scofield, sixty, is picking clusters of deep violet Rondo grapes from lines of vines arranged along the hillside with the assistance of her child, Luca. The conservationist, a wildlife and conservation film-maker who has worked on Netflix's Great National Parks series and television network's gardening shows, was motivated to cultivate vines after observing her neighbor's grapevines. She has learned that amateurs can make interesting, enjoyable traditional vintage, which can sell for more than £7 a glass in the increasing quantity of wine bars focusing on minimal-intervention wines. "It's just deeply rewarding that you can truly make good, traditional vintage," she says. "It is quite fashionable, but really it's reviving an traditional method of making vintage."

"When I tread the fruit, all the natural microorganisms are released from the surfaces and enter the liquid," explains the winemaker, ankle deep in a container of small branches, pips and red liquid. "That's how wines were historically produced, but industrial wineries introduce preservatives to eliminate the wild yeast and subsequently incorporate a lab-grown culture."

Difficult Conditions and Inventive Solutions

In the immediate vicinity active senior another cultivator, who inspired Scofield to plant her vines, has gathered his friends to pick Chardonnay grapes from one hundred plants he has arranged precisely across multiple levels. The former teacher, a northern English PE teacher who worked at the local university cultivated an interest in wine on regular visits to Europe. However it is a difficult task to cultivate this particular variety in the humidity of the gorge, with cooling tides sweeping in and out from the nearby estuary. "I aimed to produce French-style vintages here, which is a bit bonkers," says Reeve with amusement. "This variety is slow-maturing and very sensitive to mildew."

"I wanted to make Burgundian wines here, which is rather ambitious"

The temperamental Bristol climate is not the sole challenge encountered by winegrowers. The gardener has been compelled to erect a fence on