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Every 20 minutes or so, an ageing diesel-powered railway carriage pulls into a graffiti-covered station. Close by, a law enforcement alarm cuts through the near-constant road noise. Daily travelers hurry past falling apart, ivy-covered garden fences as rain clouds form.

This is perhaps the last place you anticipate to find a perfectly formed grape-growing plot. However James Bayliss-Smith has managed to four dozen established plants sagging with plump mauve berries on a sprawling allotment sandwiched between a line of historic homes and a commuter railway just above Bristol downtown.

"I've seen individuals concealing illegal substances or whatever in the shrubbery," says Bayliss-Smith. "But you just get on with it ... and keep tending to your vines."

The cameraman, forty-six, a filmmaker who also has a fermented beverage company, is among several urban winemaker. He has pulled together a loose collective of cultivators who make wine from several discreet urban vineyards tucked away in private yards and community plots across the city. It is too clandestine to have an formal title so far, but the collective's WhatsApp group is named Vineyard Dreams.

Urban Vineyards Around the Globe

So far, Bayliss-Smith's plot is the only one registered in the Urban Vineyards Association's forthcoming world atlas, which features more famous urban wineries such as the 1,800 plants on the hillsides of the French capital's historic artistic district neighbourhood and more than 3,000 vines overlooking and inside Turin. Based in Italy non-profit association is at the vanguard of a initiative reviving city vineyards in historic wine-producing nations, but has discovered them all over the world, including cities in Japan, South Asia and Central Asia.

"Vineyards assist urban areas remain greener and ecologically varied. These spaces preserve land from construction by creating long-term, yielding agricultural units inside cities," explains the organization's leader.

Similar to other vintages, those created in urban areas are a product of the earth the vines thrive in, the vagaries of the weather and the people who care for the grapes. "Each vintage represents the charm, community, environment and history of a city," notes the president.

Unknown Eastern European Variety

Back in the city, Bayliss-Smith is in a race against time to gather the grapevines he grew from a plant abandoned in his allotment by a Polish family. Should the rain comes, then the birds may seize their chance to feast once more. "This is the mystery Eastern European variety," he says, as he cleans bruised and rotten berries from the glistering clusters. "We don't really know what variety they are, but they are certainly disease-resistant. Unlike premium grapes – Burgundy grapes, white wine grapes and additional renowned French grapes – you don't have to treat them with pesticides ... this is possibly a special variety that was developed by the Eastern Bloc."

Collective Efforts Across Bristol

Additional participants of the collective are additionally making the most of bright periods between showers of fall precipitation. At a rooftop garden with views of the city's shimmering harbour, where historic trading ships once floated with barrels of wine from Europe and Spain, Katy Grant is collecting her rondo grapes from approximately fifty plants. "I love the smell of these vines. 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 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 vineyard when she returned to the UK from East Africa with her family in 2018. She felt an strong responsibility to look after the grapevines in the garden of their new home. "This plot has already survived three different owners," she says. "I deeply appreciate the idea of environmental care – of passing this on to someone else so they can continue producing from this land."

Sloping Vineyards and Traditional Production

Nearby, the final two members of the collective are busily laboring on the steep inclines of the local river valley. Jo Scofield has established over 150 plants situated on terraces in her expansive property, which descends towards the silty local waterway. "People are always surprised," she says, indicating the tangled vineyard. "It's astonishing to them they can see rows of vines in a city street."

Currently, the filmmaker, 60, is harvesting bunches of dusty purple Rondo grapes from lines of plants slung across the cliff-side with the help of her child, her family member. The conservationist, a wildlife and conservation film-maker who has worked on streaming service's Great National Parks series and BBC Two's Gardeners' World, was motivated to plant grapes after seeing her neighbour's grapevines. She has learned that hobbyists can produce interesting, pleasurable natural wine, which can sell for more than £7 a glass in the growing number of wine bars specialising in low-processing wines. "It's just incredibly satisfying that you can truly create good, natural wine," she says. "It's very on trend, but in reality it's reviving an traditional method of making wine."

"During foot-stomping the fruit, the various wild yeasts are released from the surfaces and enter the liquid," says Scofield, partially submerged in a bucket of small branches, pips and crimson juice. "That's how wines were historically produced, but industrial wineries add sulphur [dioxide] to eliminate the natural cultures and then incorporate a commercially produced culture."

Difficult Environments and Inventive Approaches

A few doors down sprightly retiree Bob Reeve, who motivated his neighbor to establish her vines, has gathered his companions to pick white wine varieties from the 100 plants he has laid out neatly across multiple levels. The former teacher, a Lancashire-born physical education instructor who taught at the local university developed a passion for wine on annual sporting trips to Europe. However it is a difficult task to grow Chardonnay grapes in the humidity of the valley, with temperature fluctuations sweeping in and out from the Bristol Channel. "I aimed to produce Burgundian wines here, which is a bit bonkers," says Reeve with a smile. "Chardonnay is slow-maturing and very sensitive to mildew."

"I wanted to make European-style vintages here, which is rather ambitious"

The unpredictable Bristol climate is not the sole problem faced by winegrowers. The gardener has been compelled to erect a fence on