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Each 20 minutes or so, an ageing diesel-powered train pulls into a spray-painted stop. Nearby, a law enforcement alarm pierces the near-constant road noise. Commuters hurry past falling apart, ivy-draped fencing panels as rain clouds gather.

It is perhaps the last place you expect to find a perfectly formed grape-growing plot. However one local grower has managed to 40 mature vines heavy with round mauve grapes on a sprawling garden plot sandwiched between a row of historic homes and a local rail line just north of the city downtown.

"I've seen individuals concealing illegal substances or other items in the shrubbery," states Bayliss-Smith. "But you simply continue ... and keep tending to your grapevines."

Bayliss-Smith, 46, a documentary cameraman who also has a fermented beverage company, is among several local vintner. He's organized a informal group of growers who make vintage from several discreet urban vineyards nestled in private yards and community plots throughout Bristol. It is sufficiently underground to have an official name so far, but the collective's WhatsApp group is called Grape Expectations.

City Wine Gardens 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 better-known city vineyards such as the eighteen hundred vines on the hillsides of the French capital's renowned artistic district area and over three thousand vines overlooking and within the Italian city. The Italian-based charitable organization is at the forefront of a movement reviving city vineyards in traditional winemaking countries, but has discovered them all over the globe, including urban centers in East Asia, South Asia and Uzbekistan.

"Grape gardens assist urban areas remain greener and ecologically varied. These spaces protect land from development by establishing long-term, productive agricultural units within urban environments," says the organization's leader.

Like all wines, those created in urban areas are a result of the earth the vines grow in, the vagaries of the weather and the people who tend the fruit. "Each vintage embodies the beauty, local spirit, environment and heritage of a urban center," notes the spokesperson.

Mystery Polish Variety

Back in Bristol, Bayliss-Smith is in a urgent timeline to harvest the grapevines he cultivated from a cutting left in his garden by a Eastern European household. Should the rain arrives, then the birds may take advantage to feast once more. "Here we have the mystery Polish 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 premium grapes – Burgundy grapes, Chardonnay and other famous European varieties – you don't have to treat them with pesticides ... this could be a unique cultivar that was developed by the Eastern Bloc."

Collective Efforts Across the City

Additional participants of the collective are additionally taking advantage of bright periods between bursts of autumn rain. On the terrace overlooking the city's glistening waterfront, where historic trading ships once floated with barrels of vintage from France and the Iberian peninsula, one cultivator is collecting her rondo grapes from about 50 plants. "I love the aroma of the grapevines. It is so evocative," she remarks, pausing with a container of grapes slung over her shoulder. "It's the scent of southern France when you open the car windows on holiday."

The humanitarian worker, 52, who has devoted more than 20 years working for charitable groups in war-torn regions, inadvertently took over the grape garden when she moved back to the United Kingdom from Kenya with her household in recent years. She experienced an overwhelming duty to maintain the grapevines in the garden of their recently acquired property. "This plot has already survived multiple proprietors," she explains. "I deeply appreciate the concept of natural stewardship – of handing this down to someone else so they keep cultivating from the soil."

Sloping Vineyards and Traditional Winemaking

A short walk away, the remaining cultivators of the group are hard at work on the steep inclines of Avon Gorge. Jo Scofield has established more than 150 vines perched on terraces in her expansive property, which tumbles down towards the silty River Avon. "People are always surprised," she says, gesturing towards the interwoven vineyard. "They can't believe they can see grapevine lines in a city street."

Currently, Scofield, sixty, is picking clusters of dusty purple Rondo grapes from lines of plants slung across the hillside 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 inspired to plant grapes after observing her neighbor's grapevines. She's discovered that amateurs can make interesting, pleasurable natural wine, which can sell for upwards of seven pounds a serving in the increasing quantity of establishments focusing on low-processing vintages. "It is deeply rewarding that you can truly create quality, traditional vintage," she says. "It's very on trend, but in reality it's resurrecting an traditional method of making vintage."

"When I tread the grapes, the various natural microorganisms are released from the surfaces and enter the liquid," explains the winemaker, ankle deep in a container of tiny stems, pips and red liquid. "This represents how vintages were historically produced, but commercial producers add sulphur [dioxide] to eliminate the wild yeast and subsequently add a lab-grown culture."

Difficult Environments and Inventive Approaches

A few doors down sprightly retiree Bob Reeve, who inspired his neighbor to establish her vines, has gathered his friends to pick Chardonnay grapes from one hundred vines he has laid out neatly across multiple levels. The former teacher, a Lancashire-born PE teacher who worked at the local university cultivated an interest in viticulture on annual sporting trips to Europe. However it is a challenge to cultivate Chardonnay grapes in the humidity of the gorge, with temperature fluctuations sweeping in and out from the Bristol Channel. "I wanted to produce French-style vintages in this location, which is a bit bonkers," says the retiree with amusement. "Chardonnay is late to ripen and particularly vulnerable to mildew."

"I wanted to make Burgundian wines in this environment, which is rather ambitious"

The temperamental Bristol climate is not the only challenge faced by winegrowers. Reeve has been compelled to install a barrier on