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Every quarter of an hour or so, an ageing diesel-powered train pulls into a graffiti-covered stop. Close by, a police siren cuts through the near-constant traffic drone. Commuters hurry past falling apart, ivy-covered garden fences as rain clouds form.

It is perhaps the last place you expect to find a perfectly formed vineyard. However one local grower has cultivated four dozen established plants heavy with plump mauve grapes on a sprawling allotment situated between a line of historic homes and a commuter railway just north of Bristol town centre.

"I've noticed individuals concealing illegal substances or other items in those bushes," states Bayliss-Smith. "Yet you simply continue ... and keep tending to your grapevines."

The cameraman, 46, a documentary cameraman who also has a fermented beverage company, is not the only urban winemaker. He's pulled together a loose collective of cultivators who produce wine from several hidden city grape gardens tucked away in back gardens and community plots throughout the city. The project is too clandestine to have an official name yet, but the collective's WhatsApp group is called Grape Expectations.

City Vineyards Across the World

So far, the grower's allotment is the sole location registered in the Urban Vineyards Association's upcoming world atlas, which includes better-known city vineyards such as the eighteen hundred vines on the slopes of the French capital's historic Montmartre neighbourhood and over three thousand vines with views of and within the Italian city. Based in Italy charitable organization is at the vanguard of a initiative reviving city vineyards in traditional winemaking countries, but has discovered them throughout the globe, including urban centers in Japan, Bangladesh and Central Asia.

"Vineyards assist urban areas remain more eco-friendly and more diverse. They preserve land from development by creating permanent, productive agricultural units inside cities," says the association's president.

Like all wines, those produced in cities are a product of the earth the vines grow in, the vagaries of the climate and the individuals who tend the grapes. "Each vintage embodies the charm, local spirit, environment and history of a city," notes the president.

Unknown Eastern European Grapes

Returning to Bristol, the grower is in a urgent timeline to harvest the grapevines he grew from a cutting left in his allotment by a Polish family. If the rain arrives, then the birds may seize their chance to feast again. "This is the mystery Eastern European variety," he comments, as he removes bruised and rotten grapes from the glistering bunches. "We don't really know their exact classification, but they're definitely disease-resistant. Unlike premium grapes – Burgundy grapes, white wine grapes and additional renowned European varieties – you don't have to treat them with pesticides ... this is possibly a unique cultivar that was bred by the Eastern Bloc."

Group Efforts Across the City

The other members of the collective are also making the most of bright periods between showers of fall precipitation. At a rooftop garden overlooking the city's shimmering harbour, where historic trading ships once floated with barrels of wine from Europe and Spain, Katy Grant is collecting her dark berries from about fifty vines. "I adore the smell of the grapevines. It is so reminiscent," she remarks, stopping with a basket of fruit resting on her shoulder. "It recalls the fragrance of Provence when you open the vehicle windows on vacation."

Grant, fifty-two, who has devoted more than 20 years working for charitable groups in conflict zones, unexpectedly inherited the grape garden when she moved back to the UK from East Africa with her household in recent years. She felt an strong responsibility to maintain the vines in the garden of their new home. "This vineyard has already endured three different owners," she says. "I really like the idea of natural stewardship – of passing this on to future caretakers so they keep cultivating from this land."

Sloping Vineyards and Natural Winemaking

A short walk away, the remaining cultivators of the group are hard at work on the precipitous slopes of the local river valley. One filmmaker has established over one hundred fifty vines situated on ledges in her wild half-acre garden, which descends towards the muddy local waterway. "People are always surprised," she notes, indicating the tangled grape garden. "It's astonishing to them they can see rows of vines in a city street."

Currently, Scofield, sixty, is picking clusters of deep violet dark berries from rows of plants arranged along the cliff-side with the assistance of her daughter, Luca. The conservationist, a documentary producer who has contributed to Netflix's nature programming and BBC Two's Gardeners' World, was inspired to plant grapes after seeing her neighbour's vines. She has learned that hobbyists can produce intriguing, pleasurable natural wine, which can sell for more than £7 a serving in the increasing quantity of wine bars specialising in low-processing vintages. "It's just deeply rewarding that you can actually create good, traditional vintage," she says. "It's very on trend, but really it's reviving an traditional method of making wine."

"When I tread the fruit, the various wild yeasts come off the surfaces into the liquid," explains Scofield, partially submerged in a container of tiny stems, pips and red liquid. "This represents how vintages were made traditionally, but commercial producers add sulphur [dioxide] to eliminate the natural cultures and subsequently add a commercially produced yeast."

Difficult Conditions and Creative Solutions

A few doors down active senior another cultivator, who motivated Scofield to establish her vines, has gathered his companions to harvest Chardonnay grapes from the 100 vines he has laid out neatly across two terraces. Reeve, a Lancashire-born physical education instructor who worked at the local university cultivated an interest in wine on regular visits to Europe. However it is a difficult task to cultivate Chardonnay grapes in the dampness of the valley, with cooling tides sweeping in and out from the Bristol Channel. "I wanted to make French-style vintages here, which is a bit bonkers," admits Reeve with amusement. "Chardonnay is late to ripen and particularly vulnerable to fungal infections."

"I wanted to make Burgundian wines in this environment, which is rather ambitious"

The temperamental Bristol climate is not the sole challenge faced by winegrowers. Reeve has had to install a fence on