What is made here
Wine colours
Colours the rules allow. Pick a colour to filter the rules and grapes below.
Where it is
Valles de Benavente in Spain
- Latitude
- 41.7°–42.2° N
- Vineyard altitude
- 718 m to 767 m
- Production zone
- 166,874 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 Valles de Benavente must meet.
Blend rules
Valles de Benavente Vinos Rosados
- ≥ 35% Prieto Picudo / Mencía / Tempranillo · Main grape
- ≤ 30% white varieties · Allowed
Blend rules
Valles de Benavente Vinos Tintos jóvenes
- ≥ 75% Prieto Picudo / Mencía / Tempranillo (main red varieties) · Main grape
- – VERDEJO · Main grape
- – TEMPRANILLO, CENCIBEL, TINTO DE TORO · Main grape
- – PRIETO PICUDO · Main grape
- – MENCIA · Main grape
- – DOÑA BLANCA, CIGÜENTE · Main grape
Blend rules
Valles de Benavente Vinos Tintos Crianza, Reserva y Gran Reserva
- ≥ 75% Prieto Picudo / Mencía / Tempranillo (main red varieties) · Main grape
- – VERDEJO · Main grape
- – TEMPRANILLO, CENCIBEL, TINTO DE TORO · Main grape
- – PRIETO PICUDO · Main grape
- – MENCIA · Main grape
- – DOÑA BLANCA, CIGÜENTE · Main grape
Other varieties allowed
Besides the main grapes, the rules allow these varieties in some wines. Grape names link where a profile exists.
7 varieties ·
Cabernet Sauvignon, Doña Blanca, Grenache, Mencía, Prieto Picudo, Tempranillo, Verdejo
In the vineyard and cellar: rules for every wine
900
Vines per hectare, minimum
02 · Climate fingerprint
The climate
The growing season averages 17.0 °C, warm on Gregory Jones's scale, with 1,503 growing degree days (Winkler II).
The average year 1991–2020, vineyards at about 747 m
Monthly mean, °CRain, mmGrowing season
- Growing-season temperature
- 17.0 °C
- Warm · 17–19 °C (Jones)
- Growing degree days
- 1,503
- Region II: 1,389–1,666 degree days
- Growing-season rain
- 253 mm
- Of 474 mm a year
- Harvest rain
- 92 mm
- September–October
Copernicus ERA5-Land monthly averages at 5 vineyard points (Vineyard point 1, 764 m; Vineyard point 2, 751 m; Vineyard point 3, 718 m; Vineyard point 4, 767 m; Vineyard point 5, 737 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. Ribera del DueroVery similarCompared with Valles de Benavente: same season warmth, similar rain.
2. Dehesa PeñalbaVery similarCompared with Valles de Benavente: same season warmth, similar rain.
3. Pago de ArínzanoVery similarCompared with Valles de Benavente: same season warmth, wetter (+71 mm).
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, 92 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
- Technical file: Valles de Benavente (Ares(2014)2133970) · National authority, as filed in the EU register (eAmbrosia) · Official document
- Climate profiles calculated by Vinous: method
Still to check (3)
- Generated from EU reference data: check against the current product specification.
- From the specification: Source is the 2014 technical file (single document in Spanish). White and rosé wines share one description and limits, split here by colour; rosé yields are not stated. Crianza, Reserva and Gran Reserva follow general Spanish law (no periods given here). Bottling must take place in the production zone.
- National tier (DOC/DOCG) not captured yet; rules extracted from the specification text.