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Every 20 minutes or so, an ageing diesel railway carriage arrives at a spray-painted stop. Nearby, a police siren cuts through the near-constant traffic drone. Daily travelers rush by collapsing, ivy-draped garden fences as rain clouds gather.

It is perhaps the last place you expect to find a perfectly formed vineyard. However one local grower has cultivated 40 mature vines heavy with plump mauve berries on a rambling allotment situated between a row of 1930s houses and a local rail line just north of the city downtown.

"I've seen individuals hiding illegal substances or other items in the shrubbery," says the grower. "But you just get on with it ... and continue caring for your grapevines."

Bayliss-Smith, forty-six, a filmmaker who runs a kombucha drinks business, is among several local vintner. He's organized a informal group of cultivators who make wine from four discreet urban vineyards nestled in private yards and community plots throughout the city. It is too clandestine to have an formal title so far, but the group's WhatsApp group is called Vineyard Dreams.

City Wine Gardens Across the World

To date, the grower's plot is the only one listed in the Urban Vineyards Association's upcoming world atlas, which features more famous urban wineries such as the 1,800 plants on the slopes of Paris's renowned Montmartre neighbourhood and more than 3,000 grapevines with views of and inside the Italian city. Based in Italy charitable organization is at the vanguard of a initiative reviving city vineyards in traditional winemaking nations, but has identified them all over the globe, including cities in Japan, South Asia and Uzbekistan.

"Vineyards help urban areas remain greener and more diverse. These spaces protect open space from construction by creating long-term, productive agricultural units inside urban environments," says the organization's leader.

Like all wines, those produced in urban areas are a result of the earth the plants grow in, the vagaries of the weather and the individuals who tend the fruit. "Each vintage embodies the charm, local spirit, environment and heritage of a urban center," notes the spokesperson.

Mystery Eastern European Grapes

Returning to Bristol, Bayliss-Smith is in a urgent timeline to harvest the grapevines he cultivated from a plant left in his garden by a Eastern European household. Should the rain arrives, then the birds may take advantage to attack again. "Here we have the mystery Polish grape," he says, as he removes damaged and rotten grapes from the glistering clusters. "We don't really know their exact classification, but they're definitely disease-resistant. Unlike noble varieties – Burgundy grapes, Chardonnay and additional renowned European varieties – you don't have to treat them with chemicals ... this could be a unique cultivar that was bred by the Soviets."

Collective Efforts Across Bristol

The other members of the group are also taking advantage of bright periods between showers of autumn rain. At a rooftop garden with views of Bristol's shimmering harbour, where medieval merchant vessels once bobbed with barrels of vintage from France and the Iberian peninsula, one cultivator is collecting her dark berries from approximately 50 vines. "I love the aroma of these vines. It is so reminiscent," she remarks, pausing with a basket of fruit slung over her arm. "It's the scent of Provence when you open the car windows on vacation."

Grant, 52, who has spent over 20 years working for charitable groups in war-torn regions, unexpectedly inherited the grape garden when she returned to the UK from Kenya with her household in recent years. She felt an strong responsibility to maintain the grapevines in the garden of their recently acquired property. "This vineyard has already survived multiple proprietors," she explains. "I really like the concept of natural stewardship – of passing this on to someone else so they keep cultivating from this land."

Terraced Gardens and Traditional Winemaking

Nearby, the final two members of the group are hard at work on the steep inclines of the local river valley. Jo Scofield has cultivated more than 150 vines perched on terraces in her expansive property, which descends towards the muddy local waterway. "Visitors frequently express amazement," she says, gesturing towards the interwoven grape garden. "They can't believe they can see rows of vines in a city street."

Currently, Scofield, sixty, is harvesting bunches of deep violet dark berries from rows of vines slung across the cliff-side with the assistance of her daughter, her family member. The conservationist, a documentary producer who has contributed to Netflix's Great National Parks series and BBC Two's gardening shows, was motivated to plant grapes after observing her neighbour's grapevines. She's discovered that amateurs can make interesting, enjoyable traditional vintage, which can sell for more than seven pounds a glass in the increasing quantity of wine bars focusing on minimal-intervention vintages. "It's just deeply rewarding that you can actually make good, traditional vintage," she states. "It is quite on trend, but in reality it's resurrecting an old way of making vintage."

"During foot-stomping the fruit, all the natural microorganisms are released from the skins into the liquid," explains the winemaker, ankle deep in a bucket of small branches, seeds and crimson juice. "This represents how wines were historically produced, but industrial wineries introduce preservatives to kill the natural cultures and then incorporate a commercially produced yeast."

Challenging Conditions and Creative Approaches

In the immediate vicinity active senior another cultivator, who motivated his neighbor to plant her vines, has assembled his friends to pick white wine varieties from one hundred plants he has laid out neatly across multiple levels. Reeve, a Lancashire-born PE teacher who taught at Bristol University cultivated an interest in viticulture on regular visits to France. But it is a difficult task to grow this particular variety in the humidity of the valley, with cooling tides moving through from the nearby estuary. "I aimed to make Burgundian wines in this location, which is somewhat ambitious," says Reeve with a smile. "This variety is late to ripen and very sensitive to mildew."

"I wanted to make European-style vintages in this environment, which is rather ambitious"

The temperamental Bristol climate is not the sole problem faced by winegrowers. The gardener has been compelled to erect a fence on