Vinous

AOC · Appellation profile

Ajaccio

97,530 haProduction zone
4Wines in the rules
19.8 °CGrowing season · hot
IVWinkler region

What is made here

Wine colours

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

Where it is

Ajaccio in France

Latitude
41.7°–42.3° N
Vineyard altitude
27 m to 389 m
Delimited vineyard land
23,219 ha

Lies within
Corse

Worked out from the boundaries (smallest container first). Uses the delimited parcels where INAO publishes them.

The delimited vineyard parcels themselves, so the shape is patchy: only land within them may grow the wine. Boundary: INAO parcel delimitation (Licence Ouverte); nearby parcels drawn as one block, with less detail for larger appellations. 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 Ajaccio must meet.

4 wines in the rules, all colours.
WineMain grape(s)Max yield
t/ha
Max wine
hl/ha
Yield ceiling
hl/ha
Grape sugar
min. g/l
Grape ripeness
min. % pot. alc.
Ajaccio Barbaroux, Nielluccio, Sciacarello +1–50–––
Ajaccio 80% Vermentino7.5455018711.5
Ajaccio rouge barbaroux / nielluccio / sciaccarello / vermentino, sciaccarello7.54550–12
Ajaccio rosé barbaroux / nielluccio / sciaccarello / vermentino, sciaccarello7.5455018711.5

From the official production rules (cahier des charges). Hover a figure to see the clause it comes from. A dash means the rules set no figure, or it is not captured yet.

Blend rules

Ajaccio

  • ≥ 80% Vermentino · Main grape
  • ≤ 10% biancu gentile / codivarta / genovese · Allowed
  • – ugni blanc · Allowed

Blend rules

Ajaccio rouge

  • ≥ 60% barbaroux / nielluccio / sciaccarello / vermentino · Main grape
  • ≥ 40% sciaccarello · Main grape
  • ≤ 15% Carignan · Allowed
  • ≤ 10% aleatico / carcajolo / morrastel · Allowed
  • – cinsaut / grenache · Allowed

Blend rules

Ajaccio rosé

  • ≥ 60% barbaroux / nielluccio / sciaccarello / vermentino · Main grape
  • ≥ 40% sciaccarello · Main grape
  • ≤ 15% Carignan · Allowed
  • ≤ 10% aleatico / carcajolo / morrastel · Allowed
  • – cinsaut / grenache · Allowed

Other varieties allowed

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

6 varieties · Ajaccio, Ajaccio rouge, Ajaccio rosé

Aléatico, Carcajolo, Carignan, Cinsaut, Grenache, Morrastel

4 varieties · Ajaccio

Biancu Gentile, Codivarta, Genovèse, Ugni Blanc

In the vineyard and cellar: rules for every wine

4,000
Vines per hectare, minimum
Training
Systems allowed
gobelet; cordon de Royat; taille Guyot simple; taille Guyot double
Permitted, with limits
Irrigation
Not allowed
Enrichment (chaptalisation)

02 · Climate fingerprint

The climate

The growing season averages 19.8 °C, hot on Gregory Jones's scale, with 2,106 growing degree days (Winkler IV).

The average year  1991–2020, vineyards at about 138 m

Monthly mean, °CRain, mmGrowing season
8.9° 87 Jan 8.8° 79 Feb 10.9° 79 Mar 13.4° 82 Apr 17.3° 64 May 21.3° 38 Jun 24.1° 17 Jul 24.6° 19 Aug 20.8° 57 Sep 17.3° 105 Oct 13.0° 135 Nov 10.0° 118 Dec
Growing-season temperature
19.8 °C
Hot · 19–21 °C (Jones)
Growing degree days
2,106
Region IV: 1,944–2,221 degree days
Growing-season rain
381 mm
Of 878 mm a year
Harvest rain
162 mm
September–October

Copernicus ERA5-Land monthly averages at 5 vineyard points (Vineyard point 1, 67 m; Vineyard point 2, 21 m; Vineyard point 3, 344 m; Vineyard point 4, 33 m; Vineyard point 5, 226 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. ΡαψάνηVery similarCompared with Ajaccio: same season warmth, similar rain.
2. Val di Cornia RossoVery similarCompared with Ajaccio: same season warmth, similar rain.
3. Val di CorniaVery similarCompared with Ajaccio: same season warmth, similar rain.

Growing-season temperature

Ajaccio
19.8 °C
Ραψάνη
19.8 °C
Val di Cornia Rosso
19.9 °C
Val di Cornia
19.9 °C

Growing degree days

Ajaccio
2,106
Ραψάνη
2,093
Val di Cornia Rosso
2,115
Val di Cornia
2,115

Growing-season rain

Ajaccio
381 mm
Ραψάνη
391 mm
Val di Cornia Rosso
397 mm
Val di Cornia
397 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, 162 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

  1. 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
  2. Quality wines in Italy and France: a dataset of PDO specifications · figshare 25393261 · CC BY 4.0
  3. ERA5-Land monthly averaged data (reanalysis-era5-land-monthly-means) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), Climate Data Store · CC BY 4.0 (Copernicus licence)
  4. OpenStreetMap vineyard areas (landuse=vineyard), from Geofabrik country extracts · OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL 1.0
  5. Copernicus DEM GLO-90 (AWS open data tiles) · European Space Agency / Copernicus · Copernicus DEM licence
  6. Cahier des charges: Ajaccio (Cahier des charges modifié de l'AOC Ajaccio - BO n°50 du 12 décembre 2019) · Ministère de l'Agriculture (Bulletin officiel), as linked by INAO · Official act
  7. Délimitation parcellaire des AOC viticoles de l'INAO · Institut national de l'origine et de la qualité (INAO), via data.gouv.fr · Licence Ouverte / Open Licence (Etalab)
  8. Appellation nesting worked out from boundaries (pipeline/build_nesting.py) · Vinous, from the Eurac PDO boundaries · CC0 (source data)
  9. Climate profiles calculated by Vinous: method
Still to check (4)
  • Generated from EU reference data: check against the current product specification.
  • Irrigation recorded as 'Allowed/Prohibited'.
  • From the specification: The register lists one name but the text governs white, red and rosé, so red and rosé are added. Grape limits apply to the holding's vineyard except the vermentino 80% and sciaccarello 40% minimums, which also apply to the blend; red ripeness is 189 g/l for cinsaut and 207 g/l for other varieties (both 12%), irrigated parcels are limited to 6000 kg/ha, and maximum residual sugar is 4 g/l (5 g/l above 14% natural alcohol).
  • National tier (DOC/DOCG) not captured yet; rules extracted from the specification text.