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Every 20 minutes or so, an ageing diesel railway carriage arrives at a spray-painted stop. Nearby, a law enforcement alarm pierces the almost continuous traffic drone. Commuters hurry past falling apart, ivy-draped garden fences as rain clouds gather.

It is maybe the least likely spot you expect to find a well-established vineyard. But James Bayliss-Smith has managed to 40 mature vines heavy with plump mauve grapes on a rambling allotment situated between a line of 1930s houses and a commuter railway just north of Bristol town centre.

"I've noticed people concealing illegal substances or other items in the shrubbery," says Bayliss-Smith. "Yet you simply continue ... and continue caring for your grapevines."

The cameraman, forty-six, a filmmaker who runs a kombucha drinks business, is among several urban winemaker. He's organized a informal group of cultivators who produce vintage from several discreet city grape gardens tucked away in back gardens and allotments across the city. It is too clandestine to have an formal title yet, but the group's WhatsApp group is named Grape Expectations.

Urban Vineyards Across the Globe

To date, Bayliss-Smith's plot is the sole location registered in the Urban Vineyards Association's upcoming world atlas, which features better-known urban wineries such as the 1,800 plants on the slopes of the French capital's historic Montmartre area and over three thousand grapevines overlooking and within Turin. Based in Italy charitable organization is at the vanguard of a movement reviving city vineyards in traditional winemaking countries, but has identified them throughout the world, including cities in Japan, Bangladesh and Uzbekistan.

"Vineyards assist cities stay greener and ecologically varied. These spaces protect open space from development by establishing long-term, yielding agricultural units inside urban environments," says the organization's leader.

Similar to other vintages, those produced in cities are a result of the soils the plants grow in, the vagaries of the weather and the people who care for the fruit. "A bottle of wine embodies the charm, community, landscape and history of a urban center," adds the spokesperson.

Mystery Polish Variety

Back in Bristol, the grower is in a race against time to gather the grapevines he cultivated from a plant left in his allotment by a Polish family. If the rain arrives, then the birds may seize their chance to attack once more. "This is the mystery Eastern European grape," he says, as he cleans damaged and mouldy grapes from the shimmering bunches. "The variety remains uncertain their exact classification, but they are certainly disease-resistant. In contrast to noble varieties – Burgundy grapes, Chardonnay and other famous European varieties – you need not treat them with pesticides ... this is possibly a unique cultivar that was developed by the Soviets."

Collective Activities Throughout Bristol

The other members of the collective are additionally taking advantage of bright periods between showers of fall precipitation. At a rooftop garden overlooking Bristol's shimmering harbour, where historic trading ships once bobbed with barrels of wine from France and Spain, Katy Grant is harvesting her dark berries from about 50 plants. "I love the smell of the grapevines. The scent is so reminiscent," she says, pausing with a container of fruit resting on her shoulder. "It's the scent of southern France when you roll down the car windows on vacation."

The humanitarian worker, fifty-two, who has devoted more than 20 years working for humanitarian organizations in conflict zones, inadvertently inherited the vineyard when she moved back to the UK from East Africa 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 previously survived three different owners," she explains. "I deeply appreciate the concept of environmental care – of passing this on to future caretakers so they keep cultivating from the soil."

Terraced Gardens and Natural Production

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 vines situated on terraces in her wild half-acre garden, which descends towards the silty River Avon. "People are always surprised," she says, gesturing towards the interwoven grape garden. "It's astonishing to them they can see rows of vines in a urban neighborhood."

Today, Scofield, sixty, is harvesting bunches of dusty purple dark berries from lines of vines arranged along the hillside with the assistance of her daughter, Luca. Scofield, a wildlife and conservation film-maker who has worked on streaming service's nature programming and BBC Two's gardening shows, was motivated to plant grapes after seeing her neighbor's vines. She has learned that hobbyists can produce interesting, enjoyable traditional vintage, which can command prices of upwards of seven pounds a serving in the increasing quantity of wine bars focusing on low-processing vintages. "It is deeply rewarding that you can actually make quality, natural wine," she states. "It's very fashionable, but in reality it's resurrecting an old way of producing vintage."

"When I tread the grapes, all the wild yeasts come off the surfaces into the liquid," explains the winemaker, ankle deep in a bucket of small branches, seeds and crimson juice. "That's how vintages were made traditionally, but industrial wineries add sulphur [dioxide] to eliminate the wild yeast and then add a commercially produced culture."

Difficult Environments and Inventive Solutions

A few doors down sprightly retiree another cultivator, who motivated his neighbor to establish her grapevines, has assembled his companions to harvest Chardonnay grapes from one hundred vines he has laid out neatly across multiple levels. The former teacher, a Lancashire-born physical education instructor who worked at Bristol University developed a passion for viticulture on regular visits to France. However it is a challenge to grow this particular variety in the humidity of the valley, with cooling tides moving through from the nearby estuary. "I aimed to produce Burgundian wines here, which is a bit bonkers," admits the retiree with amusement. "Chardonnay is late to ripen and particularly vulnerable to fungal infections."

"My goal was creating European-style vintages here, which is a bit bonkers"

The temperamental local weather is not the sole problem faced by grape cultivators. The gardener has had to install a barrier on