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Each 20 minutes or so, an ageing diesel railway carriage pulls into a spray-painted station. Nearby, a law enforcement alarm pierces the almost continuous road noise. Daily travelers rush by falling apart, ivy-draped fencing panels as storm clouds form.

This is perhaps the last place you expect to find a well-established vineyard. However one local grower has cultivated four dozen established plants heavy with plump mauve berries on a rambling allotment situated between a row of 1930s houses and a commuter railway just above the city town centre.

"I've noticed people hiding heroin or other items in those bushes," says the grower. "But you just get on with it ... and keep tending to your grapevines."

The cameraman, 46, a documentary cameraman who also has a kombucha drinks business, is not the only local vintner. He's organized a informal group of growers who produce vintage from several hidden city grape gardens nestled in private yards and allotments throughout the city. The project is too clandestine to have an official name so far, but the group's WhatsApp group is called Grape Expectations.

Urban Vineyards Around the Globe

To date, the grower's plot is the sole location registered in the Urban Vineyards Association's forthcoming world atlas, which features better-known city vineyards such as the eighteen hundred plants on the slopes of the French capital's renowned artistic district neighbourhood and over three thousand vines with views of and inside the Italian city. The Italian-based non-profit association is at the vanguard of a movement re-establishing city vineyards in traditional winemaking nations, but has discovered them all over the world, including cities in East Asia, Bangladesh and Central Asia.

"Grape gardens assist urban areas stay more eco-friendly and ecologically varied. These spaces preserve open space from development by creating permanent, yielding agricultural units inside cities," explains the association's president.

Similar to other vintages, those produced in urban areas are a product of the soils the vines thrive in, the unpredictability of the weather and the people who care for the grapes. "A bottle of wine embodies the charm, community, landscape and history of a city," notes the president.

Unknown Polish Variety

Back in the city, Bayliss-Smith is in a urgent timeline to harvest the grapevines he grew from a cutting left in his allotment by a Eastern European household. If the rain comes, then the birds may take advantage to feast once more. "Here we have the enigmatic Eastern European variety," he comments, as he cleans damaged and rotten berries from the shimmering bunches. "We don't really know their exact classification, but they are certainly disease-resistant. In contrast to premium grapes – Pinot Noir, white wine grapes and other famous French grapes – you need not spray them with pesticides ... this could be a unique cultivar that was bred by the Eastern Bloc."

Collective Efforts Across the City

Additional participants of the group are additionally taking advantage of bright periods between showers of fall precipitation. On the terrace with views of the city's shimmering harbour, where medieval merchant vessels once floated with barrels of vintage from Europe and the Iberian peninsula, one cultivator is harvesting her rondo grapes from approximately fifty plants. "I adore the aroma of these vines. It is so reminiscent," she remarks, pausing with a basket of fruit slung over her arm. "It recalls the fragrance of Provence when you open the car windows on holiday."

The humanitarian worker, 52, who has spent over 20 years working for charitable groups in war-torn regions, inadvertently inherited the grape garden when she moved back to the UK from Kenya with her household in recent years. She felt an overwhelming duty to look after the grapevines in the garden of their new home. "This plot has already endured three different owners," she explains. "I deeply appreciate the idea of natural stewardship – of passing this on to future caretakers so they continue producing from this land."

Sloping Gardens and Traditional Production

A short walk away, the final two members of the group are hard at work on the steep inclines of Avon Gorge. Jo Scofield has cultivated over one hundred fifty vines situated on terraces in her wild half-acre garden, which tumbles down towards the silty local waterway. "Visitors frequently express amazement," she notes, gesturing towards the interwoven grape garden. "It's astonishing to them they can see grapevine lines in a urban neighborhood."

Today, Scofield, sixty, is picking bunches of dusty purple dark berries from rows of plants arranged along the cliff-side with the help of her daughter, her family member. Scofield, a documentary producer who has worked on streaming service's nature programming and television network's gardening shows, was inspired to plant grapes after seeing her neighbor's vines. She has learned that amateurs can make intriguing, enjoyable traditional vintage, which can sell for more than seven pounds a serving in the growing number of wine bars focusing on low-processing vintages. "It is deeply rewarding that you can truly make good, traditional vintage," she states. "It's very on trend, but really it's resurrecting an traditional method of making wine."

"When I tread the grapes, all the natural microorganisms come off the surfaces into the juice," says the winemaker, partially submerged in a container of tiny stems, seeds and crimson juice. "This represents how wines were made traditionally, but industrial wineries add preservatives to eliminate the wild yeast and subsequently add a lab-grown culture."

Difficult Conditions and Inventive Solutions

A few doors down sprightly retiree another cultivator, who inspired Scofield to plant her vines, has gathered his friends to harvest white wine varieties from the 100 vines he has laid out neatly across multiple levels. The former teacher, a Lancashire-born physical education instructor who worked at the local university cultivated an interest in viticulture on regular visits to Europe. However it is a difficult task to grow Chardonnay grapes in the dampness of the gorge, with temperature fluctuations moving through from the Bristol Channel. "I wanted to make Burgundian wines in this location, which is somewhat ambitious," says Reeve with a smile. "Chardonnay is slow-maturing and very sensitive to fungal infections."

"I wanted to make Burgundian wines in this environment, which is a bit bonkers"

The temperamental local weather is not the sole problem faced by grape cultivators. The gardener has had to install a fence on