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Every 20 minutes or so, an ageing diesel train pulls into a spray-painted station. Nearby, a police siren cuts through the near-constant traffic drone. Daily travelers rush by collapsing, ivy-draped garden fences as rain clouds gather.

It is perhaps the last place you anticipate to find a well-established grape-growing plot. However James Bayliss-Smith has cultivated four dozen established plants sagging with round purplish grapes on a rambling garden plot situated between a line of historic homes and a local rail line just north of the city town centre.

"I've seen individuals concealing illegal substances or whatever in the shrubbery," says the grower. "But you just get on with it ... and continue caring for your vines."

The cameraman, 46, a documentary cameraman who also has a fermented beverage company, is not the only urban winemaker. He's pulled together a informal group of cultivators who make wine from several discreet city grape gardens nestled in back gardens and allotments throughout the city. The project is sufficiently underground to have an formal title so far, but the collective's WhatsApp group is named Grape Expectations.

City Wine Gardens Across the Globe

So far, the grower's allotment is the only one listed in the City Vineyard Network's forthcoming world atlas, which features better-known urban wineries such as the eighteen hundred vines on the hillsides of the French capital's renowned artistic district area and over 3,000 vines with views of and within the Italian city. Based in Italy charitable organization is at the vanguard of a initiative re-establishing urban grape cultivation in traditional winemaking countries, but has discovered them throughout the world, including cities in East Asia, South Asia and Uzbekistan.

"Grape gardens help cities remain greener and more diverse. They protect open space from construction by creating permanent, productive agricultural units inside urban environments," explains the organization's leader.

Similar to other vintages, those produced in cities are a product of the soils the vines grow in, the unpredictability of the climate and the individuals who care for the fruit. "Each vintage represents the charm, local spirit, environment and heritage of a city," notes the president.

Mystery Eastern European Variety

Back in Bristol, Bayliss-Smith is in a race against time to harvest the vines he cultivated from a plant left in his allotment by a Eastern European household. If the rain arrives, then the birds may seize their chance to feast again. "Here we have the mystery Polish grape," he says, as he removes bruised and mouldy grapes from the shimmering clusters. "The variety remains uncertain their exact classification, but they're definitely hardy. In contrast to premium grapes – Burgundy grapes, white wine grapes and additional renowned European varieties – you need not treat them with pesticides ... this could be a special variety that was bred by the Soviets."

Collective Efforts Across Bristol

Additional participants of the group are also making the most of bright periods between bursts of fall precipitation. On the terrace with views of the city's shimmering waterfront, where historic trading ships once floated with barrels of vintage from France and Spain, one cultivator is collecting her dark berries from about 50 vines. "I love the smell of the grapevines. The scent is so reminiscent," she remarks, stopping with a container of fruit resting on her shoulder. "It recalls the fragrance of southern France when you roll down the car windows on holiday."

Grant, 52, who has devoted more than 20 years working for charitable groups in conflict zones, unexpectedly took over the grape garden when she returned to the UK from Kenya with her household in recent years. She experienced an strong responsibility to look after the vines in the yard of their new home. "This vineyard has already endured three different owners," she says. "I really like the concept of natural stewardship – of passing this on to future caretakers so they keep cultivating from this land."

Sloping Vineyards and Natural Winemaking

Nearby, the final two members of the collective are busily laboring on the precipitous slopes of Avon Gorge. One filmmaker has established more than 150 plants situated on ledges in her expansive property, which descends towards the silty local waterway. "Visitors frequently express amazement," she says, gesturing towards the tangled grape garden. "They can't believe they are viewing rows of vines in a city street."

Today, the filmmaker, sixty, is picking bunches of dusty purple dark berries from lines of plants arranged along the hillside with the assistance of her child, her family member. Scofield, a wildlife and conservation film-maker who has worked on Netflix's nature programming and television network's Gardeners' World, was motivated to cultivate vines after observing her neighbour's grapevines. She's discovered that hobbyists can make intriguing, pleasurable natural wine, which can sell for upwards of seven pounds a serving in the growing number of establishments focusing on low-processing wines. "It's just incredibly satisfying that you can truly create good, traditional vintage," she says. "It is quite on trend, but in reality it's reviving an old way of producing vintage."

"When I tread the fruit, all the wild yeasts come off the surfaces into the liquid," says the winemaker, partially submerged in a container of small branches, seeds and crimson juice. "That's how vintages were made traditionally, but industrial wineries add preservatives to kill the wild yeast and subsequently add a lab-grown yeast."

Challenging Conditions and Inventive Approaches

In the immediate vicinity active senior another cultivator, who motivated Scofield to establish her grapevines, has assembled his companions to harvest Chardonnay grapes from one hundred vines he has arranged precisely across two terraces. The former teacher, a northern English physical education instructor who worked at Bristol University cultivated an interest in wine on regular visits to Europe. But it is a challenge to cultivate Chardonnay grapes in the dampness of the gorge, with cooling tides moving through from the nearby estuary. "I wanted to produce Burgundian wines in this location, which is a bit bonkers," admits the retiree with amusement. "Chardonnay is late to ripen and particularly vulnerable to mildew."

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

The unpredictable local weather is not the only problem encountered by winegrowers. Reeve has had to erect a fence on