What is made here
Wine colours
The only colour the rules allow.
Where it is
Cava in Spain
- Latitude
- 38.6°–42.6° N
- Vineyard altitude
- 95 m to 668 m
- Production zone
- 483,531 ha
Contains 3 appellations (outlined on the zone map)
Chozas Carrascal, Los Balagueses, Penedès
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 Cava must meet.
Blend rules
Cava quality sparkling wine (white/rosé)
- ≥ 25% red grape varieties (rosé only) · Main grape
- – Varieties listed in the specification · Others allowed
Blend rules
Cava 'Reserva'
- ≥ 25% red grape varieties (rosé only) · Main grape
- – Varieties listed in the specification · Others allowed
Blend rules
Cava 'Gran Reserva'
- ≥ 25% red grape varieties (rosé only) · Main grape
- – Varieties listed in the specification · Others allowed
Blend rules
Cava 'Paraje Calificado'
- ≥ 25% red grape varieties (rosé only) · Main grape
- – Varieties listed in the specification · Others allowed
Other varieties allowed
Besides the main grapes, the rules allow these varieties in some wines. Grape names link where a profile exists.
9 varieties · 4 wines
Alarije, Chardonnay, Grenache, Macabeo, Mourvèdre, Parellada, Pinot Noir, Trepat, Xarello
In the vineyard and cellar: rules for every wine
1,500
Vines per hectare, minimum
Training
Systems allowed
gobelet; trellis
02 · Climate fingerprint
The climate
The growing season averages 18.5 °C, warm on Gregory Jones's scale, with 1,827 growing degree days (Winkler III).
The average year 1991–2020, vineyards at about 445 m
Monthly mean, °CRain, mmGrowing season
- Growing-season temperature
- 18.5 °C
- Warm · 17–19 °C (Jones)
- Growing degree days
- 1,827
- Region III: 1,667–1,943 degree days
- Growing-season rain
- 315 mm
- Of 550 mm a year
- Harvest rain
- 108 mm
- September–October
Copernicus ERA5-Land monthly averages at 5 vineyard points (Vineyard point 1, 283 m; Vineyard point 2, 560 m; Vineyard point 3, 609 m; Vineyard point 4, 56 m; Vineyard point 5, 716 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 moderately complex terrain; not yet checked against a weather station.
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. СтамболовоVery similarCompared with Cava: same season warmth, similar rain.
2. CalzadillaVery similarCompared with Cava: same season warmth, similar rain.
3. CassisVery similarCompared with Cava: 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, 108 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
- Single document: Cava (Official Journal C, C/2026/241, 13.1.2026; and the technical file 'Ares(2014)3948182' from the EU register) · European Union, Official Journal (C series) · EU law (Commission reuse policy)
- 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: Varieties (9): Alarije – Subirat Parent, Chardonnay, Garnacha Tinta, Macabeo – Viura, Monastrell, Parellada, Pinot Noir, Trepat, Xarello. The document gives no minimum months on lees for any Cava type. Base wine from first press juice only, at most 1 hl per 150 kg of grapes (0.6 hl per 100 kg for 'Paraje Calificado'); 'Paraje Calificado' prohibits enrichment, acidification and colour adjustment and needs base-wine acidity of 5.5 g/l (5 g/l otherwise). Density is 1,111 plants/ha minimum for the 'Real' formation and at most 3,500/ha; Reserva, Gran Reserva and Paraje Calificado grapes must come from organic vineyards at least 10 years old. Sparkling method quote comes from the link section of the document.
- National tier (DOC/DOCG) not captured yet; rules extracted from the specification text.