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Each quarter of an hour or so, an ageing diesel railway carriage arrives at a spray-painted stop. Close by, a police siren cuts through the almost continuous traffic drone. Commuters hurry past collapsing, ivy-covered garden fences as storm clouds form.

This is perhaps the least likely spot you anticipate to find a well-established grape-growing plot. But James Bayliss-Smith has managed to 40 mature vines heavy with plump purplish berries on a rambling garden plot situated between a row of 1930s houses and a local rail line just north of Bristol town centre.

"I've seen individuals hiding heroin or other items in those bushes," states Bayliss-Smith. "But you simply continue ... and continue caring for your vines."

The cameraman, 46, a documentary cameraman who also has a fermented beverage company, is among several urban winemaker. He has pulled together a loose collective of growers who make wine from four discreet city grape gardens tucked away in back gardens and allotments throughout Bristol. The project is too clandestine to have an formal title yet, but the collective's messaging chat is called Vineyard Dreams.

Urban Vineyards Around the Globe

So far, Bayliss-Smith's allotment is the sole location listed in the City Vineyard Network's forthcoming world atlas, which includes more famous urban wineries such as the 1,800 plants on the hillsides of the French capital's historic artistic district area and over 3,000 grapevines overlooking and inside Turin. The Italian-based non-profit association is at the vanguard of a movement re-establishing city vineyards in traditional winemaking nations, but has identified them all over the world, including urban centers in East Asia, South Asia and Central Asia.

"Vineyards help cities remain more eco-friendly and ecologically varied. These spaces protect land from development by establishing permanent, productive farming plots within urban environments," says the organization's leader.

Like all wines, those produced in cities are a product of the soils the plants thrive in, the unpredictability of the weather and the people who care for the fruit. "Each vintage represents the beauty, community, environment and history of a urban center," notes the president.

Unknown Polish Grapes

Returning to Bristol, Bayliss-Smith is in a race against time to harvest the vines he grew from a cutting left in his garden by a Eastern European household. If the rain comes, then the pigeons may take advantage to feast again. "Here we have the enigmatic Polish variety," he says, as he removes bruised and rotten berries from the shimmering bunches. "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 chemicals ... this is possibly a unique cultivar that was developed by the Eastern Bloc."

Group Efforts Throughout the City

Additional participants of the group are also making the most of sunny interludes between showers of fall precipitation. At a rooftop garden overlooking Bristol's glistening harbour, where historic trading ships once bobbed with barrels of vintage from France and Spain, Katy Grant is harvesting her dark berries from about fifty plants. "I adore the smell of the grapevines. It is so evocative," she says, stopping with a container of fruit slung over her shoulder. "It recalls the fragrance of Provence when you roll down the vehicle windows on holiday."

Grant, fifty-two, who has devoted more than two decades working for charitable groups in conflict zones, inadvertently inherited the vineyard when she moved back to the UK from Kenya with her household in recent years. She felt an strong responsibility to look after the grapevines in the garden of their new home. "This plot has previously survived multiple proprietors," she explains. "I deeply appreciate the idea of natural stewardship – of passing this on to someone else so they continue producing from this land."

Terraced Gardens and Traditional Production

Nearby, the remaining cultivators of the group are busily laboring on the steep inclines of Avon Gorge. One filmmaker has established more than one hundred fifty vines perched on ledges in her expansive property, which tumbles down towards the silty River Avon. "Visitors frequently express amazement," she notes, indicating the tangled grape garden. "It's astonishing to them they are viewing grapevine lines in a city street."

Currently, Scofield, sixty, is harvesting clusters of dusty purple Rondo grapes from rows 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 worked on Netflix's nature programming and BBC Two's Gardeners' World, was inspired to plant grapes after observing her neighbour's grapevines. She's discovered that hobbyists can produce interesting, pleasurable traditional vintage, which can sell for upwards of £7 a glass in the growing number of wine bars specialising in low-processing vintages. "It's just incredibly satisfying that you can truly create quality, traditional vintage," she states. "It is quite on trend, but really it's reviving an traditional method of producing vintage."

"When I tread the fruit, the various natural microorganisms are released from the skins into the liquid," explains Scofield, ankle deep in a bucket of small branches, pips and red liquid. "This represents how vintages were historically produced, but commercial producers add sulphur [dioxide] to eliminate the wild yeast and then add a commercially produced culture."

Challenging Conditions and Creative Solutions

A few doors down active senior Bob Reeve, who inspired his neighbor to plant her vines, has assembled his friends to pick Chardonnay grapes from the 100 vines he has laid out neatly across two terraces. The former teacher, a Lancashire-born PE teacher who taught at the local university developed a passion for wine on regular visits to Europe. However it is a difficult task to grow this particular variety in the dampness of the gorge, with cooling tides moving through from the Bristol Channel. "I wanted to make Burgundian wines in this location, which is somewhat ambitious," admits the retiree with amusement. "Chardonnay is slow-maturing and particularly vulnerable to fungal infections."

"My goal was creating European-style vintages here, which is a bit bonkers"

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