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Each 20 minutes or so, an older diesel-powered train pulls into a graffiti-covered station. Nearby, a law enforcement alarm cuts through the almost continuous traffic drone. Daily travelers hurry past collapsing, ivy-draped garden fences as storm clouds gather.

This 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 sagging with plump mauve berries on a sprawling allotment sandwiched between a row of historic homes and a commuter railway just north of the city downtown.

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

The cameraman, 46, a documentary cameraman who also has a kombucha drinks business, is among several local vintner. He has pulled together a informal group of cultivators who produce vintage from several hidden city grape gardens tucked away in private yards and community plots throughout the city. It is sufficiently underground to have an official name yet, but the collective's WhatsApp group is named Vineyard Dreams.

Urban Vineyards Around the Globe

So far, Bayliss-Smith's plot is the sole location registered in the Urban Vineyards Association's forthcoming global directory, which includes more famous urban wineries such as the eighteen hundred vines on the hillsides of the French capital's renowned Montmartre neighbourhood and over three thousand vines with views of and inside Turin. Based in Italy non-profit association is at the forefront of a initiative reviving urban grape cultivation in historic wine-producing countries, but has discovered them all over the globe, including cities in Japan, South Asia and Uzbekistan.

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

Like all wines, those produced in cities 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, local spirit, landscape and history of a city," adds the spokesperson.

Mystery Eastern European Variety

Returning to the city, the grower is in a urgent timeline to gather the grapevines he grew from a cutting left in his allotment by a Polish family. Should the precipitation comes, then the pigeons may seize their chance to attack again. "This is the mystery Polish variety," he comments, as he cleans damaged and rotten grapes from the shimmering clusters. "The variety remains uncertain their exact classification, but they are certainly hardy. Unlike premium grapes – Burgundy grapes, Chardonnay and additional renowned European varieties – you don't have to treat them with pesticides ... this could be a unique cultivar that was developed by the Soviets."

Collective Efforts Throughout the City

Additional participants of the group are also taking advantage of sunny interludes between showers of autumn rain. At a rooftop garden with views of the city's shimmering harbour, where historic trading ships once floated with casks of wine from Europe and the Iberian peninsula, Katy Grant is collecting her dark berries from about fifty plants. "I adore the smell of the grapevines. It is so reminiscent," she remarks, pausing with a basket of fruit resting on her arm. "It recalls the fragrance of Provence when you open the vehicle windows on holiday."

The humanitarian worker, fifty-two, who has spent over two decades working for charitable groups in conflict zones, inadvertently took over the grape garden when she returned to the UK from East Africa with her family in recent years. She experienced an overwhelming duty to look after the vines in the yard of their new home. "This plot has previously survived three different owners," she says. "I deeply appreciate the idea of natural stewardship – of passing this on to someone else so they keep cultivating from this land."

Terraced Vineyards and Traditional Production

A short walk away, the final two members of the group are busily laboring on the precipitous slopes of the local river valley. Jo Scofield has cultivated more than 150 vines situated on terraces in her wild half-acre garden, which descends towards the silty local waterway. "People are always surprised," she says, gesturing towards the tangled grape garden. "They can't believe they can see rows of vines in a city street."

Currently, the filmmaker, 60, is picking bunches of deep violet Rondo grapes from rows of plants slung across the hillside with the assistance of her child, Luca. Scofield, a wildlife and conservation film-maker who has worked on Netflix's nature programming and BBC Two's gardening shows, was inspired to plant grapes after observing her neighbor's grapevines. She has learned that hobbyists can make interesting, pleasurable natural wine, which can command prices of upwards of £7 a glass in the increasing quantity of establishments focusing on minimal-intervention wines. "It's just incredibly satisfying that you can truly create quality, traditional vintage," she says. "It is quite fashionable, but in reality it's resurrecting an old way of producing wine."

"During foot-stomping the fruit, the various wild yeasts are released from the surfaces into the liquid," explains Scofield, ankle deep in a container of tiny stems, seeds and crimson juice. "That's how vintages were historically produced, but industrial wineries introduce sulphur [dioxide] to eliminate the natural cultures and then add a lab-grown culture."

Challenging Conditions and Creative Solutions

A few doors down active senior Bob Reeve, who motivated his neighbor to establish her grapevines, has assembled his friends to harvest Chardonnay grapes from the 100 vines he has arranged precisely across two terraces. The former teacher, a northern English physical education instructor who worked at Bristol University developed a passion for viticulture on annual sporting trips to France. But it is a difficult task to grow Chardonnay grapes in the humidity of the valley, with cooling tides moving through from the Bristol Channel. "I wanted to make French-style vintages in this location, which is somewhat ambitious," says Reeve with a smile. "Chardonnay is slow-maturing and particularly vulnerable to mildew."

"I wanted to make Burgundian wines in this environment, which is rather ambitious"

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