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Each quarter of an hour or so, an ageing diesel-powered train arrives at a spray-painted station. Close by, a police siren pierces the almost continuous road noise. Commuters hurry past falling apart, ivy-covered fencing panels as storm clouds gather.

It is maybe the last place you expect to find a well-established vineyard. However James Bayliss-Smith has cultivated 40 mature vines heavy with round purplish grapes on a rambling garden plot situated between a row of 1930s houses and a local rail line just north of the city town centre.

"I've seen individuals concealing heroin or whatever in those bushes," says Bayliss-Smith. "But you just get on with it ... and keep tending to your grapevines."

The cameraman, 46, a filmmaker who also has a kombucha drinks business, is among several urban winemaker. He has pulled together a loose collective of growers who produce vintage from four hidden urban vineyards nestled in back gardens and community plots throughout the city. It is sufficiently underground to possess an official name yet, but the collective's WhatsApp group is called Vineyard Dreams.

Urban Wine Gardens Around the World

To date, the grower's allotment is the only one registered in the City Vineyard Network's upcoming global directory, which features better-known city vineyards such as the 1,800 vines on the hillsides of the French capital's renowned Montmartre area and over 3,000 grapevines with views of and within the Italian city. Based in Italy non-profit association is at the vanguard of a movement reviving urban grape cultivation in historic wine-producing nations, but has identified them all over the globe, including cities in East Asia, South Asia and Central Asia.

"Vineyards help urban areas stay greener and more diverse. These spaces protect land from construction by creating long-term, yielding agricultural units inside urban environments," explains the association's president.

Similar to other vintages, those produced in urban areas are a product of the soils the plants grow in, the vagaries of the climate and the people who tend the grapes. "Each vintage represents the beauty, community, environment and heritage of a urban center," notes the president.

Unknown Eastern European Variety

Returning to the city, Bayliss-Smith is in a race against time to gather the vines he grew from a cutting abandoned in his garden by a Polish family. If the precipitation comes, then the birds may take advantage to attack once more. "Here we have the mystery Polish grape," he says, as he cleans bruised and mouldy berries from the glistering bunches. "The variety remains uncertain what variety they are, but they are certainly disease-resistant. In contrast to premium grapes – Burgundy grapes, Chardonnay and additional renowned European varieties – you don't have to treat them with chemicals ... this is possibly a unique cultivar that was bred by the Soviets."

Group Activities Throughout Bristol

The other members of the group are also taking advantage of sunny interludes between bursts of fall precipitation. At a rooftop garden overlooking Bristol's shimmering waterfront, where historic trading ships once bobbed with barrels of vintage from France and Spain, Katy Grant is harvesting her dark berries from about fifty vines. "I adore the aroma of these vines. It is so evocative," she remarks, stopping with a basket of fruit resting on her shoulder. "It recalls the fragrance of Provence when you roll down the car windows on holiday."

Grant, fifty-two, who has devoted more than 20 years working for humanitarian organizations in conflict zones, inadvertently took over the vineyard when she moved back to the UK from East Africa with her household in 2018. She felt an overwhelming duty to look after the vines in the garden of their new home. "This vineyard has already survived multiple proprietors," she says. "I really like the concept of environmental care – of passing this on to future caretakers so they keep cultivating from this land."

Terraced Vineyards and Natural Winemaking

Nearby, the remaining cultivators of the group are hard at work on the precipitous slopes of Avon Gorge. Jo Scofield has cultivated over one hundred fifty plants perched on terraces in her wild half-acre garden, which tumbles down towards the muddy River Avon. "Visitors frequently express amazement," she notes, indicating the interwoven vineyard. "It's astonishing to them they are viewing grapevine lines in a city street."

Today, Scofield, 60, is harvesting clusters of dusty purple dark berries from rows of vines slung across the hillside with the assistance of her child, Luca. Scofield, a wildlife and conservation film-maker who has worked on Netflix's nature programming and television network's gardening shows, was inspired to plant grapes after observing her neighbour's vines. She has learned that amateurs can make interesting, pleasurable traditional vintage, which can command prices of more than seven pounds a glass in the increasing quantity of wine bars specialising in minimal-intervention wines. "It is incredibly satisfying that you can truly make good, traditional vintage," she states. "It's very on trend, but in reality it's resurrecting an old way of producing wine."

"During foot-stomping the fruit, all the natural microorganisms come off the skins and enter the liquid," explains Scofield, partially submerged in a bucket of small branches, seeds and crimson juice. "This represents how wines were historically produced, but commercial producers introduce sulphur [dioxide] to eliminate the natural cultures and subsequently add a lab-grown culture."

Challenging Conditions and Creative Solutions

In the immediate vicinity active senior Bob Reeve, who motivated his neighbor to establish her vines, has assembled his friends to harvest white wine varieties from one hundred vines he has arranged precisely across multiple levels. Reeve, a northern English PE teacher who worked at the local university developed a passion for wine on regular visits to France. However 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 nearby estuary. "I wanted to produce Burgundian wines in this location, which is somewhat ambitious," says the retiree with a smile. "Chardonnay is late to ripen and very sensitive to fungal infections."

"My goal was creating Burgundian wines here, which is a bit bonkers"

The temperamental Bristol climate is not the sole problem encountered by winegrowers. The gardener has had to erect a barrier on