What is made here
Wine colours
Colours the rules allow. Pick a colour to filter the rules and grapes below.
Where it is
Cigales in Spain
- Latitude
- 41.5°–41.9° N
- Vineyard altitude
- 732 m to 800 m
- Production zone
- 76,889 ha
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.
Showing every colour The colour filter changes the rules and grapes. Climate, vintages and soils describe the vineyards, so they stay the same.
01 · What the law says
The rules
Limits on grapes, yields, ripeness and ageing that every wine labelled Cigales must meet.
Other varieties allowed
Besides the main grapes, the rules allow these varieties in some wines. Grape names link where a profile exists.
10 varieties · Cigales quality sparkling wine (white/rosé/clarete)
Albillo Mayor, Cabernet Sauvignon, Garnacha Roja, Grenache, Macabeo, Merlot, Sauvignon Blanc, Syrah, Tempranillo, Verdejo
In the vineyard and cellar: rules for every wine
1,000
Vines per hectare, minimum
02 · Climate fingerprint
The climate
The growing season averages 16.7 °C, intermediate on Gregory Jones's scale, with 1,454 growing degree days (Winkler II).
The average year 1991–2020, vineyards at about 789 m
Monthly mean, °CRain, mmGrowing season
- Growing-season temperature
- 16.7 °C
- Intermediate · 15–17 °C (Jones)
- Growing degree days
- 1,454
- Region II: 1,389–1,666 degree days
- Growing-season rain
- 268 mm
- Of 501 mm a year
- Harvest rain
- 94 mm
- September–October
Copernicus ERA5-Land monthly averages at 5 vineyard points (Vineyard point 1, 781 m; Vineyard point 2, 736 m; Vineyard point 3, 844 m; Vineyard point 4, 780 m; Vineyard point 5, 803 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.
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. Tierra del Vino de ZamoraVery similarCompared with Cigales: same season warmth, similar rain.
2. ValtiendasVery similarCompared with Cigales: same season warmth, similar rain.
3. Ribera del DueroVery similarCompared with Cigales: 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, 94 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: Cigales (Official Journal C 263, 8.7.2022; and the technical file 'Ares(2014)2131745' from the EU register) · European Union, Official Journal (C series) · EU law (Commission reuse policy)
- Climate profiles calculated by Vinous: method
Still to check (3)
- Generated from EU reference data: check against the current product specification.
- From the specification: Whites and rosés/claretes share one set of analytical limits in the document. Varieties (12): Albillo Mayor, Cabernet Sauvignon, Garnacha Blanca, Garnacha Roja - Garnacha Gris, Garnacha Tinta, Garnacha Tintorera, Macabeo - Viura, Merlot, Sauvignon Blanc, Syrah, Tempranillo - Tinta del País, Verdejo. Minimum total acidity is left blank; grape ripeness is given in degrees Baumé (10 white, 10.5 red). Ageing must be in oak barrels of at most 330 litres at registered wineries, but no ageing periods are given; sweet wines are made by stopping fermentation without adding alcohol; sparkling wines may use any authorised method; bottling must take place in the production area. From the older Spanish technical file (Ares(2014)2131745): minimum must weight 10 °Bé (white varieties) and 10.5 °Bé (red), with the lower figure recorded for rosé, sweet and sparkling wines, and minimum total acidity 4.5 g/l (dry wines) and 5 g/l (sweet and sparkling). That file also says sparkling wines are made by the traditional method, whereas the current document allows any authorised method, so sparkling_method stays null; it gives 70 litres per 100 kg, 49 hl/ha (red) and 68 hl/ha (white), and densities of at least 1 200 (gobelet) and 2 200 vines/ha (trellis), all differing from values kept here; principal varieties must make up at least 50 % of every wine.
- National tier (DOC/DOCG) not captured yet; rules extracted from the specification text.