Rías Baixas · Vinous

What is made here

Wine colours

Colours the rules allow. Pick a colour to filter the rules and grapes below.

Where it is

Rías Baixas in Spain

Latitude: 41.9°–42.9° N
Vineyard altitude: 8 m to 185 m
Production zone: 226,300 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 Rías Baixas must meet.

5 wines in the rules, all colours.
Wine	Main grape(s)	Max yield t/ha	Max wine hl/ha	Grape ripeness min. % pot. alc.	Actual alc. min. %	Acidity min. g/l
Rías Baixas (quality sparkling wine)	–	12.5	90	10	10	3.5
Rías Baixas Albariño	Albariño	12.5	90	11	11.3	3.5
Other Rías Baixas white wines	–	12.5	90	10	11	3.5
Rías Baixas Barrica	–	12.5	90	–	11.5	3.5
Rías Baixas Tinto	–	12.5	90	9.5	10	3.5

From the official production rules (EU single document, Official Journal). Hover a figure to see the clause it comes from. A dash means the rules set no figure, or it is not captured yet.

Other varieties allowed

Besides the main grapes, the rules allow these varieties in some wines. Grape names link where a profile exists.

13 varieties · Rías Baixas (quality sparkling wine)

Albariño, Brancellao, Caiño Blanco, Caíño Tinto, Espadeiro, Godello, Loureira, Loureiro Tinto, Mencía, Pedral, Sousón, Torrontés, Treixadura

02 · Climate fingerprint

The climate

The growing season averages 17.0 °C, warm on Gregory Jones's scale, with 1,488 growing degree days (Winkler II).

The average year 1991–2020, vineyards at about 121 m

Monthly mean, °CRain, mmGrowing season

Growing-season temperature: 17.0 °C; Warm · 17–19 °C (Jones)
Growing degree days: 1,488; Region II: 1,389–1,666 degree days
Growing-season rain: 683 mm; Of 1,526 mm a year
Harvest rain: 275 mm; September–October

Copernicus ERA5-Land monthly averages at 5 vineyard points (Vineyard point 1, 104 m; Vineyard point 2, 52 m; Vineyard point 3, 180 m; Vineyard point 4, 194 m; Vineyard point 5, 77 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. LoazzoloVery similarCompared with Rías Baixas: same season warmth, similar rain.

2. BéarnVery similarCompared with Rías Baixas: same season warmth, similar rain.

3. PokupljeVery similarCompared with Rías Baixas: same season warmth, similar rain.

Growing-season temperature

Rías Baixas

17.0 °C

Loazzolo

16.9 °C

Béarn

16.9 °C

Pokuplje

17.0 °C

Growing degree days

Rías Baixas

1,488

Loazzolo

1,481

Béarn

1,477

Pokuplje

1,512

Growing-season rain

Rías Baixas

683 mm

Loazzolo

652 mm

Béarn

649 mm

Pokuplje

643 mm

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, 275 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: Rías Baixas (Official Journal C, C/2024/7432, 13.12.2024; and the technical file 'Ares(2014)4226655' 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: The Albariño product name implies the variety but the single document gives no share. Barrica wines are aged in barrels of at most 600 l with no minimum period stated. Unaged white wines carry distinctive names according to variety shares and sub-area (Val do Salnés, Condado do Tea, O Rosal, Soutomaior, Ribeira do Ulla), not detailed here. Bottling must take place in the zone; grapes must be harvested in crates.
National tier (DOC/DOCG) not captured yet; rules extracted from the specification text.