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Every 20 minutes or so, an ageing diesel-powered railway carriage pulls into a graffiti-covered stop. Close by, a law enforcement alarm cuts through the near-constant road noise. Commuters hurry past falling apart, ivy-draped garden fences as storm clouds form.

It is perhaps the least likely spot you anticipate to find a perfectly formed vineyard. However James Bayliss-Smith has managed to four dozen established plants sagging with plump purplish berries on a rambling allotment situated between a line of 1930s houses and a commuter railway just above the city downtown.

"I've noticed people concealing heroin or other items in the shrubbery," says the grower. "But you just get on with it ... and keep tending to your vines."

The cameraman, 46, a filmmaker who also has a kombucha drinks business, is among several local vintner. He's organized a informal group of growers who make vintage from several discreet city grape gardens nestled in back gardens and allotments throughout the city. It is too clandestine to have an official name so far, but the collective's WhatsApp group is called Vineyard Dreams.

Urban Vineyards Around the World

To date, Bayliss-Smith's plot 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 Paris's historic Montmartre neighbourhood and more than 3,000 grapevines with views of and within Turin. The Italian-based non-profit association is at the forefront of a movement re-establishing city vineyards in historic wine-producing countries, but has identified them all over the globe, including cities in Japan, South Asia and Uzbekistan.

"Grape gardens help cities stay more eco-friendly and more diverse. They protect open space from construction by creating permanent, productive agricultural units inside urban environments," explains the association's president.

Like all wines, those produced in urban areas are a product of the soils the plants thrive in, the vagaries of the climate and the people who tend the fruit. "A bottle of wine represents the beauty, local spirit, environment and history of a urban center," adds the spokesperson.

Unknown Polish Grapes

Returning to Bristol, Bayliss-Smith is in a race against time to gather the grapevines he grew from a cutting left in his allotment by a Polish family. Should the rain arrives, then the pigeons may take advantage to attack again. "Here we have the enigmatic Polish grape," he comments, as he removes damaged and mouldy berries from the shimmering bunches. "We don't really know what variety they are, but they are certainly hardy. In contrast to noble varieties – Pinot Noir, white wine grapes and other famous French grapes – you need not spray them with pesticides ... this could be a unique cultivar that was developed by the Soviets."

Collective Efforts Across the City

Additional participants of the group are additionally taking advantage of bright periods between showers of autumn rain. At a rooftop garden overlooking Bristol's glistening waterfront, where medieval merchant vessels once floated with casks of wine from France and the Iberian peninsula, Katy Grant is collecting her dark berries from approximately fifty plants. "I adore the aroma of these vines. The scent is so evocative," she says, stopping with a basket of grapes resting on her shoulder. "It's the scent of Provence when you open the vehicle windows on vacation."

The humanitarian worker, fifty-two, who has devoted more than two decades working for charitable groups in war-torn regions, inadvertently took over the grape garden when she moved back to the UK from Kenya with her family in recent years. She experienced an overwhelming duty to look after the grapevines in the yard of their new home. "This plot has already survived three different owners," she explains. "I really like the idea of environmental care – of handing this down to future caretakers so they can keep cultivating from this land."

Terraced Vineyards and Traditional Production

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 more than one hundred fifty vines perched on terraces in her wild half-acre garden, which descends towards the muddy River Avon. "Visitors frequently express amazement," she says, gesturing towards the interwoven vineyard. "It's astonishing to them they are viewing grapevine lines in a urban neighborhood."

Today, Scofield, sixty, is picking bunches of deep violet Rondo grapes from rows of vines slung across the hillside with the help of her child, Luca. Scofield, a wildlife and conservation film-maker who has worked on Netflix's nature programming and television network's Gardeners' World, was motivated to plant grapes after seeing her neighbour's grapevines. She has learned that amateurs can make interesting, enjoyable natural wine, which can command prices of more than £7 a serving in the growing number of establishments specialising in low-processing wines. "It's just incredibly satisfying that you can actually make good, traditional vintage," she states. "It is quite on trend, but in reality it's reviving an traditional method of making vintage."

"During foot-stomping the fruit, all the natural microorganisms are released from the surfaces into the juice," says the winemaker, ankle deep in a container of tiny stems, pips and crimson juice. "This represents how wines were historically produced, but commercial producers add preservatives to eliminate the wild yeast and then add a lab-grown culture."

Difficult Conditions and Creative Solutions

A few doors down sprightly retiree Bob Reeve, who inspired his neighbor to plant her vines, has gathered his friends to pick Chardonnay grapes from the 100 plants he has laid out neatly across two terraces. Reeve, a northern English PE teacher who worked at the local university cultivated an interest in wine on annual sporting trips to Europe. But it is a challenge to grow this particular variety in the humidity of the gorge, with temperature fluctuations moving through from the Bristol Channel. "I wanted to make French-style vintages here, which is a bit bonkers," says the retiree with a smile. "Chardonnay is slow-maturing and particularly vulnerable to mildew."

"My goal was creating European-style vintages in this environment, which is rather ambitious"

The temperamental local weather is not the sole challenge faced by winegrowers. Reeve has been compelled to erect a barrier on