What is made here
Wine colours
The only colour the rules allow.
Where it is
Долината на Струма in Bulgaria
- Latitude
- 41.3°–42.9° N
- Vineyard altitude
- 75 m to 559 m
- Production zone
- 944,966 ha
Contains 3 appellations (outlined on the zone map)
Мелник, Сандански, Хърсово
Worked out from the boundaries (smallest container first). They follow whole communes, so a neighbour sharing a commune can show up here too.
Boundary drawn from whole communes, so it is a little larger than the legal zone. Boundary: Eurac Research PDO inventory (CC0). Country outlines: Natural Earth. Dots on the zone map are the vineyard points used for climate.
01 · What the law says
The rules
Limits on grapes, yields, ripeness and ageing that every wine labelled Долината на Струма must meet.
Other varieties allowed
Besides the main grapes, the rules allow these varieties in some wines. Grape names link where a profile exists.
21 varieties ·
Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay, Dimiat, Keratsuda, Melnik 82, Melnim Ybileen 1300, Melnishki Rubin, Merlot, Misket Cherven, Misket Sandanski, Muscat Ottonel, Pamid, Pinot Noir, Ranna Melnishka Loza, Rkatsiteli, Rubin, Sauvignon Blanc, Shiroka Melnishka Loza, Syrah, Tamyanka, Ugni Blanc
In the vineyard and cellar: rules for every wine
1,112
Vines per hectare, minimum
Training
Systems allowed
Umbrella; Moser; medium-stem bilateral cordon
Cellar
Where the wine must be made
Within the production zone
02 · Climate fingerprint
The climate
The growing season averages 18.9 °C, warm on Gregory Jones's scale, with 1,909 growing degree days (Winkler III).
The average year 1991–2020, vineyards at about 383 m
Monthly mean, °CRain, mmGrowing season
- Growing-season temperature
- 18.9 °C
- Warm · 17–19 °C (Jones)
- Growing degree days
- 1,909
- Region III: 1,667–1,943 degree days
- Growing-season rain
- 440 mm
- Of 782 mm a year
- Harvest rain
- 110 mm
- September–October
Copernicus ERA5-Land monthly averages at 5 vineyard points (Vineyard point 1, 146 m; Vineyard point 2, 641 m; Vineyard point 3, 409 m; Vineyard point 4, 575 m; Vineyard point 5, 146 m), moved to each point's height from the model's terrain. Indices that need daily data are not captured yet. How the climate figures are made.
Lower confidence:Monthly reanalysis in complex terrain (height corrections up to 3.6 °C); absolute values may be several degrees out, year-to-year changes are more reliable.
Closest climates in the database
Picked by the data, not by hand: the profiles nearest on season warmth (counted twice), degree days, rain, ripening-month nights and day–night range. Neighbours within 30 km are left out, as they share the same weather.
1. Trebbiano d'AbruzzoVery similarCompared with Долината на Струма: same season warmth, similar rain.
2. Maremma toscanaVery similarCompared with Долината на Струма: same season warmth, similar rain.
3. EsinoVery similarCompared with Долината на Струма: same season warmth, similar rain.
Growing-season temperature
Growing degree days
Growing-season rain
03 · Year by year
35 vintages
Each column is one growing season: heat above or below the 1991–2020 average, and rain at harvest. Pick a year for the details.
Warmer than averageCooler than averageHarvest rain (Sep–Oct)Average harvest rain, 110 mm
2025
- Growing-season temp.
- Growing degree days
- Harvest rain
- Growing-season rain
- September nights
- Hot days and frosts
Seasons are labelled by harvest year (April–October). Year-to-year changes from ERA5-Land; tested against station records in Alto Adige (r = 0.94 for season temperature at Bolzano). Rain varies more locally, so treat single-season rain with some caution. Vintage ratings, harvest dates and frost or hail events have places in the data model but are not loaded yet.
04 · Where the numbers come from
Sources
- A geospatial inventory of regulatory information for wine protected designations of origin in Europe · Candiago et al., Scientific Data 9, 394 (2022); Eurac Research · CC0
- ERA5-Land monthly averaged data (reanalysis-era5-land-monthly-means) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), Climate Data Store · CC BY 4.0 (Copernicus licence)
- OpenStreetMap vineyard areas (landuse=vineyard), from Geofabrik country extracts · OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL 1.0
- Copernicus DEM GLO-90 (AWS open data tiles) · European Space Agency / Copernicus · Copernicus DEM licence
- Product specification: Долината на Струма (PDO_Dolinata na Struma.pdf) · National authority, as filed in the EU register (eAmbrosia) · Official document
- Appellation nesting worked out from boundaries (pipeline/build_nesting.py) · Vinous, from the Eurac PDO boundaries · CC0 (source data)
- Climate profiles calculated by Vinous: method
Still to check (3)
- Generated from EU reference data: check against the current product specification.
- From the specification: Dolinata na Struma / Struma Valley (Долината на Струма) PDO, 'guaranteed designation of origin' (ГНП); white, rosé and red wines. Residual sugar up to 4 g/l, or up to 9 g/l if total acidity is no more than 2 g below the residual sugar. Oak ageing is permitted; traditional terms (Novo, Premium oak, Reserva, Special reserve, Special selection, Collection, Rosenthaler) may be used without stated periods. Red wines from Pamid follow the white/rosé limits for alcohol and grape-to-wine yield; extract is set by colour. Vine spacing 2.0–3.4 m between rows and 1.0–1.5 m in the row, at most 450 vines per decare (4,500/ha); pruning load up to 54 buds per vine.
- National tier (DOC/DOCG) not captured yet; rules extracted from the specification text.