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Each 20 minutes or so, an ageing diesel train arrives at a spray-painted station. Nearby, a police siren cuts through the near-constant road noise. Daily travelers rush by collapsing, ivy-covered garden fences as storm clouds form.

It is perhaps the least likely spot you expect to find a well-established grape-growing plot. However James Bayliss-Smith has managed to 40 mature vines heavy with round mauve grapes on a rambling allotment sandwiched between a row of historic homes and a local rail line just above the city town centre.

"I've seen individuals hiding heroin or other items in those bushes," says the grower. "But you simply continue ... and keep tending to your vines."

The cameraman, 46, a filmmaker who runs a kombucha drinks business, is among several local vintner. He has pulled together a loose collective of growers who produce vintage from four hidden city grape gardens nestled in private yards and community plots throughout the city. The project is too clandestine to possess an formal title so far, but the group's WhatsApp group is named Grape Expectations.

Urban Vineyards Across the World

So far, Bayliss-Smith's plot is the only one listed in the City Vineyard Network's upcoming global directory, which includes more famous urban wineries such as the eighteen hundred vines on the slopes of the French capital's renowned artistic district neighbourhood and over 3,000 grapevines with views of and within Turin. The Italian-based non-profit association is at the forefront of a initiative re-establishing urban grape cultivation in historic wine-producing countries, but has identified them all over the globe, including cities in Japan, South Asia and Central Asia.

"Grape gardens assist urban areas remain greener and more diverse. They preserve open space from development by creating long-term, yielding farming plots inside cities," says the organization's leader.

Like all wines, those created in cities are a product of the soils the plants grow in, the vagaries of the climate and the people who tend the fruit. "A bottle of wine represents the charm, local spirit, environment and heritage of a urban center," notes the spokesperson.

Unknown Eastern European Variety

Back in the city, Bayliss-Smith is in a urgent timeline to harvest the grapevines he cultivated from a cutting left in his garden by a Polish family. If the rain comes, then the birds may seize their chance to feast again. "This is the mystery Polish grape," he says, as he removes damaged and rotten grapes from the shimmering bunches. "We don't really know their exact classification, but they're definitely disease-resistant. Unlike noble varieties – Pinot Noir, white wine grapes and other famous French grapes – you need not spray them with pesticides ... this is possibly a special variety that was bred by the Eastern Bloc."

Group Efforts Throughout the City

Additional participants of the collective are additionally taking advantage of bright periods between showers of fall precipitation. On the terrace overlooking the city's glistening waterfront, where medieval merchant vessels once floated with barrels of wine from France and the Iberian peninsula, Katy Grant is harvesting her dark berries from about 50 vines. "I adore the aroma of the grapevines. It is so evocative," she says, pausing with a basket of fruit resting on her shoulder. "It's the scent of Provence when you open the car windows on holiday."

Grant, 52, who has devoted more than 20 years working for humanitarian organizations in conflict zones, unexpectedly took over the vineyard when she moved back to the United Kingdom from East Africa with her household in recent years. She felt an overwhelming duty to maintain the vines in the yard of their recently acquired property. "This plot has previously survived three different owners," she explains. "I really like the concept of natural stewardship – of handing this down to someone else so they keep cultivating from this land."

Terraced Gardens and Natural Winemaking

Nearby, the final two members of the group are hard at work on the precipitous slopes of Avon Gorge. Jo Scofield has cultivated over 150 plants perched on terraces in her wild half-acre garden, which descends towards the muddy local waterway. "Visitors frequently express amazement," she says, gesturing towards the interwoven grape garden. "It's astonishing to them they can see grapevine lines in a urban neighborhood."

Currently, the filmmaker, sixty, is harvesting clusters of deep violet Rondo grapes from lines of vines arranged along the hillside with the help of her daughter, Luca. Scofield, a documentary producer who has worked on Netflix's nature programming and BBC Two's Gardeners' World, was inspired to plant grapes after observing her neighbour's vines. She's discovered that hobbyists can produce intriguing, pleasurable natural wine, which can command prices of more than £7 a serving in the increasing quantity of wine bars focusing on minimal-intervention vintages. "It is deeply rewarding that you can actually create good, natural wine," she states. "It is quite fashionable, but really it's reviving an old way of producing vintage."

"When I tread the grapes, all the wild yeasts come off the surfaces and enter the juice," explains the winemaker, partially submerged in a bucket of tiny stems, pips and crimson juice. "This represents how vintages were made traditionally, but commercial producers introduce preservatives to eliminate the natural cultures and subsequently add a lab-grown culture."

Challenging Conditions and Creative Approaches

In the immediate vicinity active senior another cultivator, who motivated Scofield to plant her grapevines, has assembled his friends to pick white wine varieties from one hundred vines he has arranged precisely across multiple levels. Reeve, a Lancashire-born physical education instructor who worked at the local university developed a passion for wine on annual sporting trips to Europe. But it is a difficult task to grow Chardonnay grapes in the dampness of the valley, with temperature fluctuations moving through from the Bristol Channel. "I aimed to make French-style vintages in this location, which is a bit bonkers," admits Reeve with a smile. "Chardonnay is slow-maturing and particularly vulnerable to fungal infections."

"I wanted to make European-style vintages here, which is a bit bonkers"

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