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Each quarter of an hour or so, an ageing diesel railway carriage pulls into a graffiti-covered station. Nearby, a law enforcement alarm pierces the near-constant traffic drone. Commuters hurry past falling apart, ivy-covered fencing panels as storm clouds gather.

This is maybe the least likely spot you anticipate to find a well-established vineyard. However James Bayliss-Smith has managed to 40 mature vines heavy with round purplish grapes on a rambling allotment sandwiched between a line of 1930s houses and a commuter railway just north of the city town centre.

"I've noticed people hiding illegal substances or other items in the shrubbery," says Bayliss-Smith. "Yet you simply continue ... and keep tending to your grapevines."

The cameraman, 46, a filmmaker who also has a kombucha drinks business, is among several urban winemaker. He's pulled together a loose collective of cultivators who produce vintage from several hidden urban vineyards tucked away in private yards and community plots throughout Bristol. It is sufficiently underground to possess an official name yet, but the collective's WhatsApp group is called Grape Expectations.

Urban Vineyards Around the Globe

So far, Bayliss-Smith's plot is the only one registered in the City Vineyard Network's upcoming global directory, which features better-known city vineyards such as the eighteen hundred vines on the hillsides of Paris's renowned Montmartre area and more than three thousand grapevines with views of and within the Italian city. The Italian-based non-profit association is at the vanguard of a movement re-establishing urban grape cultivation in traditional winemaking nations, but has discovered them all over the world, including cities in East Asia, Bangladesh and Central Asia.

"Vineyards assist urban areas stay greener and more diverse. They preserve land from construction by establishing permanent, yielding farming plots within cities," says the association's president.

Like all wines, those created in cities are a result of the soils the plants grow in, the vagaries of the climate and the people who tend the grapes. "A bottle of wine embodies the beauty, local spirit, landscape and heritage of a urban center," notes the spokesperson.

Unknown Polish Grapes

Returning to the city, the grower is in a urgent timeline to gather the grapevines he grew from a cutting abandoned in his garden by a Eastern European household. If the precipitation comes, then the birds may seize their chance to feast once more. "Here we have the mystery Polish grape," he says, as he removes bruised and mouldy grapes from the shimmering clusters. "The variety remains uncertain what variety they are, but they are certainly disease-resistant. Unlike premium grapes – Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and other famous European varieties – you need not treat them with pesticides ... this is possibly a unique cultivar that was developed by the Soviets."

Group Activities Across Bristol

The other members of the collective are also making the most of sunny interludes between bursts of autumn rain. On the terrace overlooking the city's shimmering waterfront, where historic trading ships once floated with casks of wine from Europe and the Iberian peninsula, Katy Grant is harvesting her dark berries from about fifty vines. "I adore the smell of these vines. It is so evocative," she says, stopping with a container of fruit slung over her shoulder. "It's the scent of southern France when you open the car windows on holiday."

Grant, 52, who has devoted more than two decades working for charitable groups in war-torn regions, inadvertently took over the vineyard when she moved back to the United Kingdom from Kenya with her household in recent years. She felt an strong responsibility to maintain the vines in the garden of their new home. "This plot has already endured multiple proprietors," she says. "I really like the concept of environmental care – of handing this down to future caretakers so they keep cultivating from this land."

Terraced Vineyards and Natural Production

A short walk away, the final two members of the group are busily laboring on the steep inclines of the local river valley. One filmmaker has cultivated over 150 vines situated on ledges in her wild half-acre garden, which descends towards the muddy River Avon. "Visitors frequently express amazement," she says, indicating the interwoven vineyard. "It's astonishing to them they are viewing grapevine lines in a city street."

Currently, the filmmaker, 60, is harvesting bunches of deep violet dark berries from lines of vines slung across the hillside with the assistance of her child, Luca. Scofield, a documentary producer who has worked on streaming service's Great National Parks series and television network's gardening shows, was inspired to plant grapes after observing her neighbor's vines. She has learned that hobbyists can produce intriguing, enjoyable traditional vintage, which can command prices of more than £7 a serving in the growing number of wine bars specialising in minimal-intervention wines. "It is deeply rewarding that you can actually make good, natural wine," she states. "It's very on trend, but really it's resurrecting an traditional method of producing vintage."

"During foot-stomping the grapes, all the wild yeasts are released from the surfaces into the liquid," says the winemaker, partially submerged in a container of small branches, pips and crimson juice. "This represents how wines were historically produced, but commercial producers introduce preservatives to eliminate the wild yeast and then add a commercially produced culture."

Difficult Environments and Inventive Solutions

A few doors down active senior Bob Reeve, who motivated Scofield to plant her grapevines, has assembled his friends to harvest white wine varieties from the 100 vines he has laid out neatly across two terraces. Reeve, a Lancashire-born physical education instructor who worked at Bristol University cultivated an interest in viticulture on annual sporting trips to France. But it is a difficult task to grow this particular variety in the humidity of the valley, with cooling tides sweeping in and out from the nearby estuary. "I aimed to make French-style vintages here, which is a bit bonkers," says the retiree with a smile. "This variety is slow-maturing and particularly vulnerable to fungal infections."

"My goal was creating Burgundian wines in this environment, which is rather ambitious"

The unpredictable local weather is not the only challenge encountered by winegrowers. The gardener has had to install a fence on