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Every quarter of an hour or so, an older diesel-powered train arrives at a spray-painted stop. Nearby, a police siren pierces the almost continuous road noise. Commuters rush by falling apart, ivy-draped fencing panels as rain clouds gather.

It is maybe the least likely spot you anticipate to find a perfectly formed vineyard. However one local grower has managed to 40 mature vines heavy with round purplish berries on a rambling garden plot situated between a row of 1930s houses and a local rail line just above the city downtown.

"I've seen people hiding illegal substances or whatever in those bushes," says Bayliss-Smith. "But you simply continue ... and keep tending to your grapevines."

Bayliss-Smith, forty-six, a documentary cameraman who also has a fermented beverage company, is not the only urban winemaker. He's pulled together a loose collective of growers who make vintage from four discreet city grape gardens tucked away in back gardens and allotments throughout Bristol. It is too clandestine to have an official name yet, but the group's WhatsApp group is called Grape Expectations.

Urban Vineyards Around the World

To date, the grower's plot is the sole location listed in the City Vineyard Network's forthcoming global directory, which includes more famous urban wineries such as the 1,800 vines on the slopes of the French capital's renowned artistic district neighbourhood and over 3,000 grapevines with views of and inside the Italian city. The Italian-based non-profit association is at the forefront of a movement re-establishing urban grape cultivation in traditional winemaking nations, but has identified them all over the globe, including urban centers in East Asia, South Asia and Uzbekistan.

"Grape gardens assist cities stay greener and ecologically varied. They preserve open space from development by creating permanent, productive agricultural units inside cities," says the association's president.

Like all wines, those produced in urban areas are a product of the soils the vines grow in, the unpredictability of the weather and the individuals who tend the fruit. "A bottle of wine embodies the charm, community, environment and heritage of a city," adds the president.

Mystery Polish Variety

Back in the city, Bayliss-Smith is in a race against time to gather the grapevines he cultivated from a cutting left in his garden by a Polish family. Should the precipitation comes, then the pigeons may seize their chance to attack again. "Here we have the mystery Polish grape," he comments, as he removes damaged and mouldy grapes from the shimmering bunches. "The variety remains uncertain their exact classification, but they're definitely hardy. Unlike noble varieties – Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and other famous European varieties – you don't have to treat them with pesticides ... this is possibly a special variety that was developed by the Eastern Bloc."

Collective Efforts Across the City

The other members of the group are also making the most of sunny interludes between bursts of fall precipitation. At a rooftop garden overlooking Bristol's glistening harbour, where medieval merchant vessels once floated with casks of vintage from France and the Iberian peninsula, one cultivator is collecting her dark berries from approximately 50 plants. "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 southern France when you open the car windows on holiday."

Grant, 52, who has devoted more than two decades working for charitable groups in conflict zones, inadvertently took over the grape garden when she returned to the United Kingdom from East Africa with her household in recent years. She felt an overwhelming duty to look after the vines in the yard of their new home. "This vineyard has already endured three different owners," she explains. "I really like the concept of environmental care – of passing this on to future caretakers so they can keep cultivating from the soil."

Sloping Vineyards and Natural Winemaking

Nearby, the final two members of the group are hard at work on the steep inclines of Avon Gorge. Jo Scofield has cultivated over 150 plants perched on terraces in her expansive property, which tumbles down towards the silty River Avon. "Visitors frequently express amazement," she says, indicating the tangled vineyard. "They can't believe they are viewing grapevine lines in a city street."

Today, the filmmaker, 60, is harvesting bunches of deep violet Rondo grapes from lines of plants slung across the cliff-side with the help of her child, her family member. Scofield, a wildlife and conservation film-maker who has contributed to Netflix's nature programming and television network's gardening shows, was inspired to plant grapes after seeing her neighbor's vines. She has learned that amateurs can make interesting, pleasurable natural wine, which can command prices of more than £7 a serving in the increasing quantity of establishments focusing on low-processing wines. "It is deeply rewarding that you can truly create quality, traditional vintage," she states. "It's very fashionable, but in reality it's reviving an old way of making wine."

"When I tread the grapes, the various wild yeasts are released from the surfaces into the juice," explains Scofield, partially submerged in a container of tiny stems, pips and crimson juice. "That's how vintages were historically produced, but commercial producers add sulphur [dioxide] to eliminate the wild yeast and subsequently add a lab-grown yeast."

Challenging Environments and Inventive Solutions

In the immediate vicinity sprightly retiree another cultivator, who motivated his neighbor to establish her vines, has gathered his companions to pick white wine varieties from one hundred vines he has arranged precisely across multiple levels. Reeve, a Lancashire-born PE teacher who taught at the local university cultivated an interest in wine on regular visits to France. But it is a challenge to grow this particular variety in the dampness of the gorge, with cooling tides moving through from the Bristol Channel. "I aimed to make Burgundian wines here, which is a bit bonkers," admits the retiree with a smile. "This variety is late to ripen and particularly vulnerable to fungal infections."

"My goal was creating European-style vintages here, which is rather ambitious"

The unpredictable Bristol climate is not the sole challenge encountered by winegrowers. The gardener has had to install a barrier on