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Every 20 minutes or so, an older diesel-powered railway carriage pulls into a spray-painted stop. Nearby, a law enforcement alarm cuts through the near-constant traffic drone. Commuters rush by falling apart, ivy-draped garden fences as rain clouds gather.

It is maybe the last place you expect to find a perfectly formed vineyard. But one local grower has cultivated 40 mature vines heavy with round mauve berries on a sprawling allotment sandwiched between a line of 1930s houses and a commuter railway just north of the city town centre.

"I've seen individuals hiding heroin or whatever in the shrubbery," states Bayliss-Smith. "But you just get on with it ... and keep tending to your grapevines."

The cameraman, forty-six, a documentary cameraman who runs a fermented beverage company, is not the only local vintner. He's organized a loose collective of cultivators who make wine from several hidden urban vineyards tucked away in back gardens and community plots throughout Bristol. It is sufficiently underground to possess an formal title so far, but the collective's WhatsApp group is named Grape Expectations.

City Vineyards Across the World

To date, the grower's plot is the sole location registered in the Urban Vineyards Association's forthcoming world atlas, which includes more famous city vineyards such as the eighteen hundred vines on the slopes of the French capital's renowned Montmartre area and over 3,000 grapevines overlooking and within the Italian city. Based in Italy charitable organization is at the forefront of a initiative reviving urban grape cultivation in traditional winemaking nations, but has discovered them throughout the world, including cities in Japan, South Asia and Uzbekistan.

"Grape gardens assist urban areas remain more eco-friendly and more diverse. These spaces preserve open space from development by creating permanent, yielding agricultural units within cities," says the association's president.

Like all wines, those created in urban areas are a result of the earth the vines grow in, the unpredictability of the climate and the individuals who care for the fruit. "A bottle of wine represents the charm, local spirit, environment and history of a city," adds the president.

Mystery Eastern European Grapes

Back in Bristol, Bayliss-Smith is in a urgent timeline to harvest the vines he cultivated from a plant abandoned in his garden by a Polish family. If the rain comes, then the pigeons may seize their chance to attack once more. "Here we have the enigmatic Polish grape," he says, as he removes bruised and rotten berries from the glistering clusters. "The variety remains uncertain what variety they are, but they are certainly disease-resistant. In contrast to premium grapes – Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and other famous European varieties – you don't have to spray them with pesticides ... this could be a special variety that was bred by the Eastern Bloc."

Group Efforts Across Bristol

Additional participants of the group are also making the most of bright periods between showers of autumn rain. On the terrace with views of Bristol's glistening harbour, where medieval merchant vessels once floated with barrels of vintage from Europe and Spain, one cultivator is collecting her rondo grapes from about fifty vines. "I love the aroma of the grapevines. The scent is so evocative," she remarks, pausing with a basket of fruit slung over her shoulder. "It recalls the fragrance of Provence when you roll down the vehicle windows on vacation."

Grant, 52, who has spent over 20 years working for humanitarian organizations in conflict zones, unexpectedly inherited the vineyard when she returned to the UK from Kenya with her household in recent years. She felt an strong responsibility to maintain the vines in the garden of their recently acquired property. "This vineyard has already endured multiple proprietors," she says. "I really like the concept of natural stewardship – of handing this down to someone else so they continue producing from this land."

Terraced Gardens and Natural Winemaking

A short walk away, the final two members of the group are busily laboring on the precipitous slopes of the local river valley. One filmmaker has cultivated over one hundred fifty plants situated on terraces in her wild half-acre garden, which descends towards the silty River Avon. "Visitors frequently express amazement," she says, gesturing towards the interwoven vineyard. "They can't believe they are viewing rows of vines in a city street."

Today, Scofield, 60, is harvesting bunches of deep violet Rondo grapes from rows of vines arranged along the hillside with the assistance of her child, Luca. The conservationist, a wildlife and conservation film-maker who has worked on streaming service's Great National Parks series and BBC Two's Gardeners' World, was inspired to cultivate vines after observing her neighbour's vines. She has learned that amateurs can make interesting, pleasurable traditional vintage, which can command prices of upwards of seven pounds a glass in the growing number of establishments specialising in minimal-intervention vintages. "It is deeply rewarding that you can actually make good, traditional vintage," she states. "It's very fashionable, but really it's resurrecting an traditional method of producing vintage."

"During foot-stomping the grapes, the various natural microorganisms come off the surfaces and enter the juice," explains Scofield, ankle deep in a bucket of small branches, pips and crimson juice. "This represents how wines were historically produced, but industrial wineries add preservatives to kill the natural cultures and subsequently add a lab-grown yeast."

Challenging Conditions and Creative Approaches

A few doors down active senior Bob Reeve, who motivated his neighbor to plant her grapevines, has gathered his companions to harvest white wine varieties from one hundred vines he has arranged precisely across two terraces. Reeve, a Lancashire-born physical education instructor who taught at Bristol University developed a passion for viticulture on annual sporting trips to Europe. However it is a challenge to cultivate this particular variety in the humidity of the valley, with cooling tides sweeping in and out from the nearby estuary. "I aimed to produce Burgundian wines in this location, which is a bit bonkers," says the retiree with a smile. "This variety is late to ripen and very sensitive to fungal infections."

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

The temperamental local weather is not the only problem encountered by winegrowers. Reeve has been compelled to install a barrier on