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Each 20 minutes or so, an ageing diesel railway carriage arrives at a graffiti-covered stop. Nearby, a law enforcement alarm pierces the almost continuous road noise. Daily travelers hurry past falling apart, ivy-draped fencing panels as storm clouds gather.

It is perhaps the last place you anticipate to find a perfectly formed grape-growing plot. However James Bayliss-Smith has cultivated 40 mature vines heavy with round mauve berries on a sprawling garden plot sandwiched between a row of historic homes and a commuter railway just north of the city town centre.

"I've seen individuals concealing illegal substances or whatever in those bushes," says the grower. "Yet you simply continue ... and continue caring for your grapevines."

Bayliss-Smith, 46, a filmmaker who runs a fermented beverage company, is among several local vintner. He's pulled together a informal group of cultivators who produce wine from several hidden city grape gardens nestled in back gardens and allotments across the city. The project is too clandestine to possess an formal title so far, but the collective's WhatsApp group is called Vineyard Dreams.

Urban Vineyards Around the Globe

To date, Bayliss-Smith's plot is the only one listed in the City Vineyard Network's upcoming world atlas, which includes more famous city vineyards such as the eighteen hundred vines on the hillsides of Paris's renowned Montmartre area and over 3,000 vines overlooking and inside the Italian city. The Italian-based charitable organization is at the vanguard of a initiative re-establishing urban grape cultivation in historic wine-producing nations, but has discovered them all over the globe, including cities in East Asia, Bangladesh and Uzbekistan.

"Vineyards help cities remain greener and ecologically varied. These spaces protect open space from construction by establishing permanent, productive farming plots inside cities," says the organization's leader.

Similar to other vintages, those created in cities are a product of the earth the plants grow in, the vagaries of the climate and the people who care for the grapes. "A bottle of wine represents the beauty, community, landscape and history of a city," adds the president.

Unknown Polish Grapes

Returning to the city, the grower is in a race against time to gather the grapevines he cultivated from a cutting abandoned in his allotment by a Polish family. If the precipitation arrives, then the pigeons may take advantage to feast again. "Here we have the mystery Polish grape," he comments, as he removes damaged and mouldy berries from the shimmering clusters. "We don't really know what variety they are, but they are certainly hardy. In contrast to noble varieties – Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and additional renowned French grapes – you don't have to treat them with chemicals ... this is possibly a special variety that was developed by the Soviets."

Collective Activities Across Bristol

Additional participants of the collective are also taking advantage of bright periods between showers of autumn rain. At a rooftop garden overlooking Bristol's glistening waterfront, where medieval merchant vessels once bobbed with casks of vintage from Europe and the Iberian peninsula, Katy Grant is collecting her dark berries from approximately 50 vines. "I adore the smell of these vines. The scent is so evocative," she remarks, pausing with a basket of grapes resting on her shoulder. "It recalls the fragrance of southern France when you roll down the vehicle windows on holiday."

Grant, fifty-two, who has spent over 20 years working for humanitarian organizations in conflict zones, unexpectedly took over the grape garden when she moved back to the UK from Kenya with her family in recent years. She felt an strong responsibility to look after the grapevines in the yard of their new home. "This vineyard has already survived multiple proprietors," she explains. "I deeply appreciate the idea of natural stewardship – of handing this down to someone else so they can continue producing from the soil."

Terraced Gardens and Natural Winemaking

A short walk away, the final two members of the collective are hard at work on the precipitous slopes of Avon Gorge. One filmmaker has cultivated more than one hundred fifty plants situated on ledges in her expansive property, which tumbles down towards the silty local waterway. "People are always surprised," she says, gesturing towards the tangled grape garden. "They can't believe they are viewing rows of vines in a urban neighborhood."

Today, the filmmaker, 60, is harvesting clusters of dusty purple dark berries from lines of vines arranged along the cliff-side with the help of her child, Luca. Scofield, a wildlife and conservation film-maker who has worked on streaming service's nature programming and BBC Two's Gardeners' World, was motivated to plant grapes after seeing her neighbor's grapevines. She's discovered that amateurs can make intriguing, enjoyable natural wine, which can sell for more than seven pounds a serving in the growing number of establishments focusing on low-processing wines. "It is deeply rewarding that you can actually make good, traditional vintage," she says. "It's very fashionable, but in reality it's reviving an old way of producing vintage."

"When I tread the grapes, all the wild yeasts come off the surfaces and enter the liquid," explains the winemaker, ankle deep in a bucket of tiny stems, seeds and red liquid. "This represents how vintages were made traditionally, but commercial producers add preservatives to eliminate the natural cultures and then incorporate a lab-grown yeast."

Challenging Conditions and Creative Approaches

A few doors down active senior Bob Reeve, who inspired Scofield to plant her vines, has gathered his friends to pick white wine varieties from one hundred vines he has laid out neatly across multiple levels. The former teacher, a northern English physical education instructor who worked at Bristol University developed a passion for viticulture on annual sporting trips to France. But it is a difficult task to grow Chardonnay grapes in the dampness of the valley, with cooling tides sweeping in and out from the Bristol Channel. "I aimed to produce French-style vintages in this location, which is somewhat ambitious," says the retiree with amusement. "Chardonnay is slow-maturing and particularly vulnerable to fungal infections."

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

The unpredictable local weather is not the only problem faced by winegrowers. The gardener has had to install a barrier on