What is made here
Wine colours
Colours the rules allow. Pick a colour to filter the rules and grapes below.
Where it is
Alsace in France
- Latitude
- 47.8°–49.1° N
- Vineyard altitude
- 186 m to 364 m
- Delimited vineyard land
- 20,110 ha
Covers the same area as
Crémant d'Alsace
Contains 51 appellations (outlined on the zone map)
Alsace grand cru Altenberg de Bergbieten, Alsace grand cru Altenberg de Bergheim, Alsace grand cru Altenberg de Wolxheim, Alsace grand cru Brand, Alsace grand cru Bruderthal, Alsace grand cru Eichberg, Alsace grand cru Engelberg, Alsace grand cru Florimont, Alsace grand cru Frankstein, Alsace grand cru Froehn, Alsace grand cru Furstentum, Alsace grand cru Geisberg, Alsace grand cru Gloeckelberg, Alsace grand cru Goldert, Alsace grand cru Hatschbourg, Alsace grand cru Hengst, Alsace grand cru Kaefferkopf, Alsace grand cru Kanzlerberg, Alsace grand cru Kastelberg, Alsace grand cru Kessler, Alsace grand cru Kirchberg de Barr, Alsace grand cru Kirchberg de Ribeauvillé, Alsace grand cru Kitterlé, Alsace grand cru Mambourg, Alsace grand cru Mandelberg, Alsace grand cru Marckrain, Alsace grand cru Moenchberg, Alsace grand cru Muenchberg, Alsace grand cru Ollwiller, Alsace grand cru Osterberg, Alsace grand cru Pfersigberg, Alsace grand cru Pfingstberg, Alsace grand cru Praelatenberg, Alsace grand cru Rangen, Alsace grand cru Rosacker, Alsace grand cru Saering, Alsace grand cru Schlossberg, Alsace grand cru Schoenenbourg, Alsace grand cru Sommerberg, Alsace grand cru Sonnenglanz, Alsace grand cru Spiegel, Alsace grand cru Sporen, Alsace grand cru Steinert, Alsace grand cru Steingrubler, Alsace grand cru Steinklotz, Alsace grand cru Vorbourg, Alsace grand cru Wiebelsberg, Alsace grand cru Wineck-Schlossberg, Alsace grand cru Winzenberg, Alsace grand cru Zinnkoepflé, Alsace grand cru Zotzenberg
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 Alsace must meet.
In the vineyard and cellar: rules for every wine
4,000
Vines per hectare, minimum
Training
Systems allowed
taille Guyot simple; Guyot double
Prohibited
Irrigation
Allowed
Enrichment (chaptalisation)
02 · Climate fingerprint
The climate
The growing season averages 15.2 °C, intermediate on Gregory Jones's scale, with 1,150 growing degree days (Winkler Ib).
The average year 1991–2020, vineyards at about 301 m
Monthly mean, °CRain, mmGrowing season
- Growing-season temperature
- 15.2 °C
- Intermediate · 15–17 °C (Jones)
- Growing degree days
- 1,150
- Region Ib: 1,111–1,388 degree days
- Growing-season rain
- 620 mm
- Of 1,035 mm a year
- Harvest rain
- 169 mm
- September–October
Copernicus ERA5-Land monthly averages at 5 vineyard points (Vineyard point 1, 244 m; Vineyard point 2, 251 m; Vineyard point 3, 404 m; Vineyard point 4, 241 m; Vineyard point 5, 366 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. Süd-OststeiermarkVery similarCompared with Alsace: same season warmth, similar rain.
2. Côtes du ForezVery similarCompared with Alsace: same season warmth, similar rain.
3. Alsace grand cru SteinertVery similarCompared with Alsace: 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, 169 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)
- 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
- Cahier des charges: Alsace (Cahier des charges relatifs aux appellations d'origine contrôlées suivantes) Fitou, Saint-Joseph, Orléans, Canon Fronsac, Luberon, Côtes d’Auvergne, Corton-Char) · 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: Most rules vary by grape (dénomination en usage) and cannot all be held per product: e.g. white grape load 12,000-14,000 kg/ha by variety, white yields 80-100 hl/ha (Gewurztraminer and Pinot gris 80, Muscat and Riesling 90, others 100), and for wines with a geographical name Gewurztraminer/Pinot gris need 193 g/l, 12% and max 15% against 168 g/l, 10.5% and max 13.5% for other whites, so those values are left empty for Côte de Rouffach, Vallée Noble and Val Saint Grégoire. Vendanges tardives / sélection de grains nobles need 257/306 g/l for Gewurztraminer and Pinot gris (235/276 g/l for Muscat and Riesling, recorded), hand harvest, no enrichment and ageing to 1 June of the second year. Wines with a geographical name or lieu-dit need 4,500 vines/ha and enrichment of at most 2% vol; lieu-dit wines (no register product) have yields 68/75 hl/ha (white) and 60/66 (red). Riesling has 6-12 g/l sugar limits depending on enrichment and acidity.
- National tier (DOC/DOCG) not captured yet; rules extracted from the specification text.