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Every quarter of an hour or so, an older diesel railway carriage pulls into a graffiti-covered station. Nearby, a police siren pierces the almost continuous traffic drone. Commuters rush by collapsing, ivy-covered fencing panels as storm clouds gather.

It is perhaps the least likely spot you expect to find a perfectly formed vineyard. But one local grower has managed to 40 mature vines heavy with round purplish grapes on a sprawling allotment situated between a line of 1930s houses and a local rail line just above the city town centre.

"I've seen people concealing illegal substances or other items in the shrubbery," says Bayliss-Smith. "But you just get on with it ... and keep tending to your vines."

The cameraman, forty-six, a documentary cameraman who also has a fermented beverage company, is not the only urban winemaker. He has pulled together a informal group of cultivators who produce wine from four discreet urban vineyards tucked away in back gardens and allotments throughout the city. It is too clandestine to have an formal title yet, but the collective's messaging chat is named Vineyard Dreams.

City Wine Gardens Around the Globe

So far, Bayliss-Smith's allotment is the sole location listed in the Urban Vineyards Association's upcoming world atlas, which includes better-known city vineyards such as the 1,800 plants on the slopes of Paris's renowned artistic district area and over three thousand grapevines overlooking and inside Turin. The Italian-based non-profit association is at the vanguard of a movement re-establishing urban grape cultivation in historic wine-producing countries, but has discovered them throughout the globe, including cities in Japan, South Asia and Central Asia.

"Grape gardens assist urban areas stay greener and ecologically varied. These spaces protect open space from development by establishing permanent, yielding agricultural units within urban environments," explains the organization's leader.

Similar to other vintages, those created in cities are a product of the soils the vines grow in, the vagaries of the climate and the people who care for the grapes. "Each vintage embodies the charm, community, environment and history of a city," adds the president.

Mystery Eastern European Grapes

Returning to the city, the grower is in a race against time to harvest the grapevines he cultivated from a plant abandoned in his allotment by a Eastern European household. Should the rain comes, then the pigeons may take advantage to feast once more. "Here we have the mystery Polish grape," he comments, as he cleans bruised and rotten berries from the shimmering bunches. "We don't really know what variety they are, but they're definitely disease-resistant. In contrast to noble varieties – Burgundy grapes, white wine grapes and other famous French grapes – you don't have to treat them with pesticides ... this could be a unique cultivar that was developed by the Soviets."

Group Activities Across the City

Additional participants of the group are additionally making the most of sunny interludes between bursts of fall precipitation. At a rooftop garden with views of the city's glistening harbour, where medieval merchant vessels once floated with casks of wine from France and Spain, Katy Grant is harvesting her dark berries from about 50 plants. "I adore the smell of the grapevines. It is so reminiscent," she says, pausing with a container of grapes slung over her arm. "It's the scent of Provence when you roll down the car windows on holiday."

The humanitarian worker, fifty-two, who has devoted more than 20 years working for humanitarian organizations in conflict zones, inadvertently took over the grape garden when she moved back to the UK from East Africa with her household in recent years. She experienced an overwhelming duty to maintain the vines in the garden of their recently acquired property. "This plot has previously survived three different owners," she explains. "I deeply appreciate the concept of environmental care – of handing this down to future caretakers so they can keep cultivating from the soil."

Sloping Vineyards and Natural Production

Nearby, the remaining cultivators of the group are hard at work on the steep inclines of the local river valley. One filmmaker has cultivated over one hundred fifty plants situated on ledges in her wild half-acre garden, which tumbles down towards the silty local waterway. "Visitors frequently express amazement," she says, gesturing towards the interwoven grape garden. "They can't believe they are viewing grapevine lines in a city street."

Today, Scofield, 60, is harvesting clusters of deep violet Rondo grapes from rows of plants slung across the hillside with the assistance of her child, Luca. Scofield, a wildlife and conservation film-maker who has worked on Netflix's Great National Parks series and television network's Gardeners' World, was motivated to cultivate vines after seeing her neighbour's grapevines. She's discovered that amateurs can produce interesting, pleasurable traditional vintage, which can command prices of upwards of £7 a serving in the growing number of wine bars focusing on low-processing vintages. "It is incredibly satisfying that you can actually make good, natural wine," she states. "It's very on trend, but really it's reviving an old way of making wine."

"During foot-stomping the grapes, the various wild yeasts come off the surfaces and enter the liquid," says the winemaker, ankle deep in a bucket of small branches, seeds and red liquid. "This represents how vintages were made traditionally, but commercial producers add preservatives to eliminate the natural cultures and subsequently incorporate a lab-grown culture."

Challenging Conditions and Inventive Solutions

In the immediate vicinity sprightly retiree another cultivator, who inspired his neighbor to plant her grapevines, has gathered his companions to harvest Chardonnay grapes from the 100 plants he has arranged precisely across two terraces. Reeve, a northern English PE teacher who taught at the local university cultivated an interest in wine on regular visits to France. However it is a difficult task to grow Chardonnay grapes in the dampness of the gorge, with cooling tides sweeping in and out from the Bristol Channel. "I wanted to produce French-style vintages here, which is a bit bonkers," says the retiree with a smile. "Chardonnay is slow-maturing and particularly vulnerable to mildew."

"I wanted to make Burgundian wines here, which is rather ambitious"

The unpredictable Bristol climate is not the only challenge faced by winegrowers. Reeve has been compelled to erect a barrier on