What is made here
Wine colours
The only colour the rules allow.
Where it is
Alsace grand cru Zotzenberg in France
- Latitude
- 48.4°–48.4° N
- Delimited vineyard land
- 36 ha
Lies within
Alsace, Crémant d'Alsace
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.
01 · What the law says
The rules
Limits on grapes, yields, ripeness and ageing that every wine labelled Alsace grand cru Zotzenberg must meet.
In the vineyard and cellar: rules for every wine
4,500
Vines per hectare, minimum
Training
Systems allowed
taille Guyot simple; taille Guyot double
Prohibited
Irrigation
Not allowed
Enrichment (chaptalisation)
02 · Climate fingerprint
The climate
The growing season averages 15.8 °C, intermediate on Gregory Jones's scale, with 1,262 growing degree days (Winkler Ib).
The average year 1991–2020, vineyards at about 237 m
Monthly mean, °CRain, mmGrowing season
- Growing-season temperature
- 15.8 °C
- Intermediate · 15–17 °C (Jones)
- Growing degree days
- 1,262
- Region Ib: 1,111–1,388 degree days
- Growing-season rain
- 698 mm
- Of 1,134 mm a year
- Harvest rain
- 184 mm
- September–October
Copernicus ERA5-Land monthly averages at 1 vineyard points (Vineyard point 1, 237 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. Bizeljsko SremičVery similarCompared with Alsace grand cru Zotzenberg: same season warmth, similar rain.
2. Crémant du JuraVery similarCompared with Alsace grand cru Zotzenberg: same season warmth, similar rain.
3. Alsace grand cru MarckrainVery similarCompared with Alsace grand cru Zotzenberg: 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, 184 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
- Quality wines in Italy and France: a dataset of PDO specifications · figshare 25393261 · CC BY 4.0
- ERA5-Land monthly averaged data (reanalysis-era5-land-monthly-means) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), Climate Data Store · CC BY 4.0 (Copernicus licence)
- Cahier des charges: Alsace grand cru Zotzenberg (Cahier des charges de l'appellation d'origine contrôlée Alsace grand cru, homologué par l'arrêté du 4 juillet 2025 (AGRT2516557A) - BO n°29 du 17 juillet 2025) · Ministère de l'Agriculture (Bulletin officiel), as linked by INAO · Official act
- 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)
- Appellation nesting worked out from boundaries (pipeline/build_nesting.py) · Vinous, from the Eurac PDO boundaries · CC0 (source data)
- Climate profiles calculated by Vinous: method
Still to check (3)
- Generated from EU reference data: check against the current product specification.
- From the specification: Shared cahier des charges for all 51 Alsace grand cru appellations; the register lists only the vendanges tardives and sélection de grains nobles wines here. Ripeness minima recorded are those for riesling and muscat (244 g/l and 14.5% for vendanges tardives, 276 g/l and 16.4% for sélection de grains nobles); gewurztraminer and pinot gris need 270 g/l and 16% (vendanges tardives) or 306 g/l and 18.2% (sélection de grains nobles). No enrichment; young vines qualify only from the 9th year after planting; hand harvesting; maximum 18 buds per vine; total production capped at 77 hl/ha; élevage until at least 1 June of the second year after the harvest; wood chips, continuous presses and centrifugal pumps banned; 'Vin du Rhin' (flûte) bottles required. Zotzenberg wines come from a single variety (gewurztraminer, pinot gris, riesling or sylvaner); sylvaner is not allowed for vendanges tardives or sélection de grains nobles, so these come from gewurztraminer, pinot gris or riesling only.
- National tier (DOC/DOCG) not captured yet; rules extracted from the specification text.