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Every quarter of an hour or so, an older diesel railway carriage pulls into a spray-painted stop. Nearby, a law enforcement alarm cuts through the near-constant traffic drone. Commuters rush by collapsing, ivy-covered garden fences as rain clouds form.

It is perhaps the least likely spot you anticipate to find a perfectly formed vineyard. But one local grower has cultivated 40 mature vines heavy with round mauve berries on a rambling garden plot situated between a row of 1930s houses and a commuter railway just above the city town centre.

"I've noticed people hiding heroin or whatever in those bushes," says the grower. "But you just get on with it ... and continue caring for your grapevines."

The cameraman, forty-six, a filmmaker who runs a kombucha drinks business, is not the only local vintner. He's organized a loose collective of growers who produce wine from four hidden city grape gardens tucked away in back gardens and allotments across Bristol. The project is too clandestine to have an official name yet, but the group's WhatsApp group is named Vineyard Dreams.

City Wine Gardens Across the Globe

So far, Bayliss-Smith's allotment is the sole location listed in the City Vineyard Network's upcoming world atlas, which includes better-known city vineyards such as the 1,800 plants on the slopes of the French capital's historic Montmartre neighbourhood and over three thousand grapevines with views of and inside the Italian city. Based in Italy charitable organization is at the vanguard of a movement re-establishing urban grape cultivation in historic wine-producing countries, but has identified them all over the world, including cities in Japan, South Asia and Central Asia.

"Grape gardens help urban areas remain more eco-friendly and ecologically varied. These spaces preserve open space from construction by establishing permanent, yielding farming plots inside urban environments," explains the organization's leader.

Like all wines, those created in cities are a product of the soils the vines thrive in, the vagaries of the weather and the people who tend the fruit. "A bottle of wine embodies the charm, local spirit, landscape and heritage of a city," notes the spokesperson.

Mystery Polish Variety

Back in Bristol, the grower is in a race against time to harvest the vines he cultivated from a plant abandoned in his allotment by a Polish family. If the rain arrives, then the pigeons may seize their chance to feast once more. "This is the enigmatic Eastern European variety," he comments, as he removes damaged and rotten grapes from the shimmering bunches. "The variety remains uncertain their exact classification, but they are certainly hardy. Unlike noble varieties – Pinot Noir, white wine grapes and additional renowned European varieties – you don't have to treat them with pesticides ... this could be a unique cultivar that was developed by the Soviets."

Collective Activities Throughout Bristol

Additional participants of the group are additionally taking advantage of bright periods between bursts of fall precipitation. At a rooftop garden overlooking the city's glistening waterfront, where historic trading ships once bobbed with barrels of vintage from Europe and the Iberian peninsula, one cultivator is harvesting her dark berries from about fifty vines. "I adore the aroma of these vines. It is so reminiscent," she remarks, pausing with a basket of fruit slung over her shoulder. "It recalls the fragrance of Provence when you roll down the car windows on vacation."

The humanitarian worker, fifty-two, who has spent over two decades working for charitable groups in war-torn regions, inadvertently inherited the grape garden when she returned to the United Kingdom from Kenya with her family in recent years. She felt an overwhelming duty to maintain the vines in the garden of their new home. "This vineyard has already survived three different owners," she explains. "I really like the idea of natural stewardship – of handing this down to someone else so they can continue producing from the soil."

Terraced Vineyards and Natural Production

Nearby, the final two members of the group are hard at work on the precipitous slopes of Avon Gorge. Jo Scofield has established more than one hundred fifty plants situated on terraces in her expansive property, which tumbles down towards the silty River Avon. "Visitors frequently express amazement," she says, gesturing towards the interwoven grape garden. "They can't believe they can see rows of vines in a urban neighborhood."

Today, the filmmaker, 60, is harvesting bunches of deep violet Rondo grapes from lines of vines arranged along the cliff-side with the help of her child, her family member. Scofield, a wildlife and conservation film-maker who has worked on streaming service's nature programming and BBC Two's gardening shows, was inspired to cultivate vines after seeing her neighbor's vines. She's discovered that amateurs can produce interesting, enjoyable traditional vintage, which can command prices of more than seven pounds a glass in the increasing quantity of establishments focusing on minimal-intervention vintages. "It's just deeply rewarding that you can truly create quality, traditional vintage," she states. "It is quite fashionable, but really it's resurrecting an old way of making wine."

"During foot-stomping the grapes, the various natural microorganisms come off the skins and enter the juice," says the winemaker, ankle deep in a bucket of tiny stems, pips and crimson juice. "This represents how wines were made traditionally, but industrial wineries introduce sulphur [dioxide] to eliminate the natural cultures and subsequently add a lab-grown yeast."

Difficult Conditions and Inventive Approaches

A few doors down sprightly retiree Bob Reeve, who inspired Scofield to plant her vines, has assembled his companions to harvest white wine varieties from one hundred plants he has arranged precisely across multiple levels. The former teacher, a Lancashire-born PE teacher who worked at Bristol University developed a passion for viticulture on annual sporting trips to Europe. However it is a challenge to grow Chardonnay grapes in the dampness of the valley, with temperature fluctuations sweeping in and out from the nearby estuary. "I wanted to produce Burgundian wines here, which is somewhat ambitious," says Reeve with amusement. "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 Bristol climate is not the only problem faced by winegrowers. Reeve has had to install a barrier on