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Each 20 minutes or so, an ageing diesel-powered railway carriage pulls into a graffiti-covered stop. Close by, a law enforcement alarm pierces the almost continuous traffic drone. Commuters rush by falling apart, ivy-covered garden fences as storm clouds gather.

This is perhaps the last place you expect to find a perfectly formed vineyard. However James Bayliss-Smith has managed to four dozen established plants heavy with plump purplish grapes on a rambling allotment situated between a line of 1930s houses and a local rail line just north of Bristol town centre.

"I've noticed individuals hiding illegal substances or whatever in those bushes," states the grower. "But you simply continue ... and continue caring for your vines."

Bayliss-Smith, forty-six, a filmmaker who runs a fermented beverage company, is among several urban winemaker. He has pulled together a informal group of cultivators who make wine from several discreet city grape gardens nestled in private yards and allotments throughout the city. It is too clandestine to possess an official name yet, but the group's WhatsApp group is named Vineyard Dreams.

City Wine Gardens Across the Globe

So far, the grower's plot is the sole location listed in the Urban Vineyards Association's forthcoming global directory, which features better-known city vineyards such as the eighteen hundred plants on the slopes of Paris's historic Montmartre area and over 3,000 grapevines overlooking and within Turin. The Italian-based non-profit association is at the forefront of a initiative reviving urban grape cultivation in traditional winemaking countries, but has identified them throughout the world, including urban centers in Japan, South Asia and Uzbekistan.

"Grape gardens help urban areas remain greener and ecologically varied. They preserve land from development by establishing permanent, productive agricultural units within urban environments," says the organization's leader.

Like all wines, those produced in urban areas are a result of the soils the plants thrive in, the vagaries of the weather and the people who tend the grapes. "Each vintage represents the beauty, local spirit, landscape and history of a city," notes the spokesperson.

Unknown Polish Grapes

Returning to the city, Bayliss-Smith is in a race against time to harvest the grapevines he cultivated from a cutting left in his allotment by a Polish family. Should the precipitation arrives, then the pigeons may seize their chance to feast again. "This is the mystery Polish grape," he comments, as he cleans bruised and rotten berries from the glistering clusters. "The variety remains uncertain what variety they are, but they're definitely disease-resistant. Unlike premium grapes – Burgundy grapes, white wine grapes and other famous French grapes – you don't have to spray them with chemicals ... this could be a special variety that was developed by the Eastern Bloc."

Group Efforts Throughout Bristol

Additional participants of the group are also taking advantage of sunny interludes between showers of fall precipitation. On the terrace overlooking the city's shimmering harbour, where historic trading ships once floated with barrels of vintage from Europe and Spain, one cultivator is harvesting her dark berries from about 50 vines. "I love the smell of these vines. The scent is so reminiscent," she says, stopping with a basket of fruit slung over her shoulder. "It recalls the fragrance of southern France when you open the vehicle windows on vacation."

The humanitarian worker, fifty-two, who has devoted more than 20 years working for charitable groups in conflict zones, inadvertently inherited the grape garden when she returned to the UK from East Africa with her family in recent years. She experienced an overwhelming duty to maintain the grapevines in the garden of their new home. "This vineyard has already survived multiple proprietors," she says. "I deeply appreciate the concept of natural stewardship – of passing this on to someone else so they can keep cultivating from the soil."

Terraced Gardens and Traditional Winemaking

A short walk away, the remaining cultivators of the group are hard at work on the steep inclines of the local river valley. One filmmaker has cultivated more than 150 plants perched on ledges in her wild half-acre garden, which tumbles down towards the silty local waterway. "People are always surprised," she notes, indicating the tangled vineyard. "It's astonishing to them they can see grapevine lines in a urban neighborhood."

Today, the filmmaker, sixty, is picking bunches of dusty purple Rondo grapes from rows of vines arranged along the hillside with the assistance of her daughter, Luca. The conservationist, a wildlife and conservation film-maker who has worked on streaming service's nature programming and television network's Gardeners' World, was inspired to plant grapes after observing her neighbor's vines. She has learned that hobbyists can produce interesting, enjoyable traditional vintage, which can sell for upwards of £7 a serving in the growing number of wine bars specialising in minimal-intervention vintages. "It's just incredibly satisfying that you can actually make good, natural wine," she states. "It's very on trend, but in reality it's reviving an old way of making wine."

"During foot-stomping the fruit, the various wild yeasts are released from the skins into the liquid," says Scofield, partially submerged in a container of tiny stems, pips and crimson juice. "This represents how wines were historically produced, but industrial wineries introduce preservatives to eliminate the wild yeast and subsequently incorporate a lab-grown culture."

Difficult Environments and Creative Solutions

In the immediate vicinity active senior Bob Reeve, who inspired Scofield to plant her grapevines, has assembled his companions to harvest white wine varieties from one hundred plants he has arranged precisely across multiple levels. The former teacher, a northern English PE teacher who taught at Bristol University developed a passion for viticulture on annual sporting trips to France. But it is a challenge to grow Chardonnay grapes in the humidity of the valley, with temperature fluctuations sweeping in and out from the nearby estuary. "I wanted to make Burgundian wines in this location, which is a bit bonkers," admits the retiree with amusement. "This variety is late to ripen and very sensitive to mildew."

"I wanted to make European-style vintages in this environment, which is a bit bonkers"

The temperamental Bristol climate is not the sole problem encountered by winegrowers. Reeve has been compelled to erect a barrier on