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Each quarter of an hour or so, an ageing diesel railway carriage pulls into a graffiti-covered station. Close by, a police siren pierces the almost continuous road noise. Commuters rush by falling apart, ivy-covered fencing panels as storm clouds form.

It is perhaps the last place you expect to find a well-established grape-growing plot. But one local grower has cultivated 40 mature vines sagging with plump purplish berries on a sprawling garden plot situated between a row of 1930s houses and a local rail line just above the city town centre.

"I've noticed people concealing heroin or whatever in the shrubbery," says Bayliss-Smith. "Yet you just get on with it ... and continue caring for your grapevines."

The cameraman, forty-six, a filmmaker who also has a fermented beverage company, is not the only urban winemaker. He's organized a informal group of growers who make vintage from four discreet city grape gardens nestled in back gardens and community plots across the city. The project is too clandestine to possess an formal title yet, but the group's messaging chat is named Vineyard Dreams.

Urban Vineyards Across the World

So far, Bayliss-Smith's plot is the sole location listed in the City Vineyard Network's upcoming world atlas, which features better-known urban wineries such as the eighteen hundred plants on the hillsides of Paris's historic artistic district area and more than three thousand vines overlooking and within Turin. Based in Italy charitable organization is at the vanguard of a movement re-establishing urban grape cultivation in historic wine-producing nations, but has discovered them throughout the world, including urban centers in East Asia, Bangladesh and Uzbekistan.

"Vineyards help urban areas remain greener and ecologically varied. These spaces protect open space from development by establishing long-term, yielding farming plots within urban environments," explains the association's president.

Similar to other vintages, those created in cities are a result of the earth the plants grow in, the vagaries of the weather and the people who tend the fruit. "A bottle of wine embodies the charm, community, environment and heritage of a city," adds the spokesperson.

Mystery Eastern European Variety

Back in Bristol, Bayliss-Smith is in a race against time to harvest the vines he grew from a cutting abandoned in his allotment by a Eastern European household. If the precipitation comes, then the birds may take advantage to attack again. "This is the enigmatic Eastern European variety," he says, as he cleans damaged and mouldy berries from the shimmering clusters. "The variety remains uncertain their exact classification, but they are certainly hardy. Unlike premium grapes – Burgundy grapes, Chardonnay and other famous European varieties – you need not spray them with chemicals ... this is possibly a special variety that was developed by the Soviets."

Group Efforts Throughout the City

The other members of the group are additionally making the most of bright periods between showers of fall precipitation. At a rooftop garden with views of the city's shimmering waterfront, where historic trading ships once bobbed with casks of wine from Europe and the Iberian peninsula, Katy Grant is collecting her rondo grapes from about 50 plants. "I love the aroma of these vines. It is so reminiscent," she remarks, pausing with a container of grapes resting on her shoulder. "It's the scent of Provence when you roll down the vehicle windows on holiday."

The humanitarian worker, 52, who has spent over two decades working for humanitarian organizations in conflict zones, unexpectedly took over the grape garden when she returned to the UK from Kenya with her family in 2018. She experienced an strong responsibility to look after the vines in the yard of their new home. "This plot has already endured multiple proprietors," she explains. "I deeply appreciate the concept of environmental care – of handing this down to someone else so they can continue producing from this land."

Sloping Gardens and Traditional Production

Nearby, the final two members of the collective are hard at work on the precipitous slopes of the local river valley. One filmmaker has cultivated over 150 vines situated on ledges in her expansive property, which tumbles down towards the silty local waterway. "People are always surprised," she says, gesturing towards the tangled vineyard. "It's astonishing to them they can see grapevine lines in a urban neighborhood."

Currently, Scofield, 60, is picking bunches of deep violet Rondo grapes from lines of vines slung across the cliff-side with the help of her child, her family member. The conservationist, a wildlife and conservation film-maker who has worked on Netflix's nature programming and television network's gardening shows, was inspired to plant grapes after seeing her neighbor's vines. She's discovered that hobbyists can make interesting, pleasurable traditional vintage, which can sell for more than seven pounds a serving in the growing number of establishments focusing on low-processing wines. "It's just deeply rewarding that you can actually create good, traditional vintage," she says. "It's very on trend, but really it's reviving an old way of making vintage."

"During foot-stomping the grapes, all the natural microorganisms come off the skins and enter the juice," says Scofield, ankle deep in a bucket of tiny stems, seeds and red liquid. "This represents how vintages were historically produced, but commercial producers introduce sulphur [dioxide] to kill the natural cultures and then incorporate a lab-grown yeast."

Challenging Conditions and Inventive Solutions

In the immediate vicinity sprightly retiree another cultivator, who motivated his neighbor to plant her vines, has assembled his friends to harvest white wine varieties from the 100 plants he has arranged precisely across two terraces. The former teacher, a Lancashire-born physical education instructor who taught at the local university cultivated an interest in viticulture on regular visits to Europe. But it is a difficult task to grow this particular variety in the dampness of the gorge, with cooling tides moving through from the nearby estuary. "I aimed to produce French-style vintages here, which is somewhat ambitious," admits Reeve with a smile. "This variety is late to ripen and particularly vulnerable to mildew."

"I wanted to make European-style vintages here, which is rather ambitious"

The temperamental Bristol climate is not the only challenge faced by winegrowers. Reeve has had to install a fence on