What is made here
Wine colours
Colours the rules allow. Pick a colour to filter the rules and grapes below.
Where it is
Rueda in Spain
- Latitude
- 41.0°–41.6° N
- Vineyard altitude
- 713 m to 849 m
- Production zone
- 296,052 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 Rueda must meet.
Other varieties allowed
Besides the main grapes, the rules allow these varieties in some wines. Grape names link where a profile exists.
11 varieties · Rueda liqueur wine – Dorado, Rueda liqueur wine – Pálido, Rueda quality sparkling wine, white and rosé
Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay, Grenache, Macabeo, Merlot, Palomino Fino, Sauvignon Blanc, Syrah, Tempranillo, Verdejo, Viognier
In the vineyard and cellar: rules for every wine
1,100
Vines per hectare, minimum
Permitted
Irrigation
02 · Climate fingerprint
The climate
The growing season averages 17.4 °C, warm on Gregory Jones's scale, with 1,596 growing degree days (Winkler II).
The average year 1991–2020, vineyards at about 764 m
Monthly mean, °CRain, mmGrowing season
- Growing-season temperature
- 17.4 °C
- Warm · 17–19 °C (Jones)
- Growing degree days
- 1,596
- Region II: 1,389–1,666 degree days
- Growing-season rain
- 237 mm
- Of 468 mm a year
- Harvest rain
- 85 mm
- September–October
Copernicus ERA5-Land monthly averages at 5 vineyard points (Vineyard point 1, 757 m; Vineyard point 2, 775 m; Vineyard point 3, 847 m; Vineyard point 4, 690 m; Vineyard point 5, 749 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. UrueñaVery similarCompared with Rueda: same season warmth, wetter (+32 mm).
2. CalatayudVery similarCompared with Rueda: same season warmth, wetter (+38 mm).
3. ToroVery similarCompared with Rueda: 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, 85 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: Rueda (Official Journal C, C/2025/3217, 12.6.2025; and the technical file 'Ares(2014)2154210' 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: White yields: 10,000 kg/ha (72 hl/ha) for trellised Verdejo and other listed whites and for gobelet Viura and Palomino Fino (recorded), 12,000 kg/ha (86.40 hl/ha) for trellised Viura, 8,000 kg/ha (57.60 hl/ha) for gobelet Verdejo and others. The main varieties are not named in the single document. Rosé wine (at least 50 % red varieties) is allowed but section 4 gives it no analytical limits. Density minimum applies to plantings from 2019. Pálido is biologically aged. Bottling must take place in the production area. Rosé limits ('Rueda vinos rosados') come from the older national technical file (2014), which groups white and rosé wines; it also gives quality sparkling wine 11.5 % vol minimum actual strength (9.5 % kept from the single document), 4 years' minimum ageing for liqueur wines with the last 2 in oak, and 3 months in barrel for 'Fermentado en barrica'.
- National tier (DOC/DOCG) not captured yet; rules extracted from the specification text.