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Each quarter of an hour or so, an older diesel-powered train pulls into a graffiti-covered stop. Close by, a law enforcement alarm cuts through the near-constant traffic drone. Daily travelers hurry past collapsing, ivy-covered fencing panels as storm clouds form.

This is perhaps the least likely spot you anticipate to find a perfectly formed grape-growing plot. But one local grower has managed to 40 mature vines sagging with plump purplish berries on a sprawling garden plot situated between a line of historic homes and a commuter railway just above the city town centre.

"I've seen people concealing heroin or whatever in those bushes," states Bayliss-Smith. "But you simply continue ... and keep tending to your grapevines."

The cameraman, 46, a filmmaker who runs a kombucha drinks business, is not the only urban winemaker. He's pulled together a informal group of cultivators who make vintage from several hidden city grape gardens tucked away in back gardens and community plots across Bristol. It is too clandestine to possess an official name yet, but the collective's WhatsApp group is called Vineyard Dreams.

City Vineyards Across the Globe

So far, the grower's allotment is the only one registered in the City Vineyard Network's upcoming world atlas, which features more famous urban wineries such as the eighteen hundred plants on the hillsides of Paris's renowned Montmartre area and more than 3,000 vines with views of and within Turin. The Italian-based charitable organization is at the vanguard of a initiative reviving urban grape cultivation in historic wine-producing nations, but has discovered them throughout the world, including cities in East Asia, Bangladesh and Uzbekistan.

"Grape gardens help urban areas remain greener and more diverse. These spaces preserve open space from development by establishing long-term, 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 plants grow in, the vagaries of the climate and the people who tend the fruit. "A bottle of wine represents the charm, local spirit, landscape and history of a urban center," adds the president.

Mystery Eastern European Grapes

Back in Bristol, the grower is in a race against time to harvest the grapevines he grew from a plant abandoned in his allotment by a Eastern European household. If the precipitation arrives, then the pigeons may take advantage to feast again. "This is the enigmatic Polish variety," he comments, as he cleans bruised and mouldy berries from the glistering bunches. "We don't really know their exact classification, but they are certainly hardy. In contrast to premium grapes – Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and additional renowned French grapes – you don't have to treat them with pesticides ... this is possibly a unique cultivar that was bred by the Eastern Bloc."

Collective Activities Across Bristol

The other members of the collective are also making the most of sunny interludes between showers of autumn rain. At a rooftop garden with views of Bristol's glistening harbour, where medieval merchant vessels once bobbed with barrels of wine from France and Spain, one cultivator is collecting her dark berries from about 50 plants. "I love the aroma of these vines. It is so evocative," she says, pausing with a basket of grapes slung over her arm. "It's the scent of Provence when you roll down the vehicle windows on holiday."

The humanitarian worker, 52, who has spent over 20 years working for humanitarian organizations in war-torn regions, inadvertently took over the grape garden when she returned to the UK from East Africa with her family in recent years. She felt an strong responsibility to maintain the grapevines in the yard of their new home. "This vineyard has already endured three different owners," she explains. "I really like the idea of natural stewardship – of handing this down to someone else so they keep cultivating from the soil."

Terraced Vineyards and Natural Production

A short walk away, the remaining cultivators of the collective are busily laboring on the steep inclines of the local river valley. Jo Scofield has established more than one hundred fifty plants perched on terraces in her wild half-acre garden, which descends towards the muddy local waterway. "Visitors frequently express amazement," she notes, indicating the tangled vineyard. "It's astonishing to them they can see rows of vines in a urban neighborhood."

Currently, Scofield, sixty, is picking bunches of dusty purple Rondo grapes from rows of plants slung across the cliff-side with the assistance of her child, Luca. Scofield, a documentary producer who has worked on Netflix's Great National Parks series and television network's Gardeners' World, was inspired to plant grapes after observing her neighbor's grapevines. She has learned that amateurs can produce intriguing, enjoyable traditional vintage, which can sell for more than £7 a glass in the growing number of establishments specialising in low-processing wines. "It's just deeply rewarding that you can truly create good, traditional vintage," she says. "It's very fashionable, but really it's reviving an traditional method of producing vintage."

"When I tread the fruit, the various natural microorganisms come off the skins into the juice," says the winemaker, ankle deep in a bucket of small branches, pips and red liquid. "That's how vintages were historically produced, but industrial wineries add sulphur [dioxide] to kill the natural cultures and then add a lab-grown culture."

Challenging Environments and Inventive Approaches

A few doors down active senior another cultivator, who inspired Scofield to establish her vines, has assembled his companions to harvest white wine varieties from the 100 vines he has arranged precisely across two terraces. The former teacher, a Lancashire-born physical education instructor who taught at the local university developed a passion for wine on regular visits to Europe. But it is a challenge to grow this particular variety in the dampness of the gorge, with temperature fluctuations sweeping in and out from the Bristol Channel. "I wanted to make French-style vintages here, which is somewhat ambitious," admits the retiree with amusement. "Chardonnay is late to ripen and very sensitive to fungal infections."

"I wanted to make European-style vintages here, which is a bit bonkers"

The temperamental local weather is not the sole problem faced by winegrowers. Reeve has been compelled to erect a fence on