What is made here
Wine colours
Colours the rules allow. Pick a colour to filter the rules and grapes below.
Where it is
Bordeaux supérieur in France
- Latitude
- 44.3°–45.6° N
- Vineyard altitude
- 5 m to 99 m
- Delimited vineyard land
- 235,269 ha
Covers the same area as
Bordeaux, Crémant de Bordeaux
Contains 31 appellations (outlined on the zone map)
Barsac, Bourg, Cadillac, Canon Fronsac, Cérons, Côtes de Bordeaux, Côtes de Bordeaux-Saint-Macaire, Entre-deux-Mers, Fronsac, Graves de Vayres, Haut-Médoc, Lalande-de-Pomerol, Listrac-Médoc, Loupiac, Lussac Saint-Emilion, Margaux, Médoc, Montagne-Saint-Emilion, Moulis, Pauillac, Pomerol, Premières Côtes de Bordeaux, Puisseguin Saint-Emilion, Saint-Emilion, Saint-Emilion Grand Cru, Saint-Estèphe, Saint-Georges-Saint-Emilion, Saint-Julien, Sainte-Croix-du-Mont, Sainte-Foy-Bordeaux, Sauternes
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 Bordeaux supérieur must meet.
Blend rules
Bordeaux Supérieur
- – cabernet-sauvignon / cabernet franc / carmenère / cot / merlot / petit verdot · Main grape
- ≤ 10% arinarnoa / castets / marselan / touriga nacional / vidoc · Allowed
; release from 1 July of the year after the harvest.
Blend rules
Bordeaux Supérieur blanc
- – muscadelle / sémillon / sauvignon / sauvignon gris · Main grape
- ≤ 30% colombard / merlot blanc / ugni blanc · Allowed
- ≤ 10% floréal / liliorila / sauvignac / souvignier gris · Allowed
; release from 15 January of the year after the harvest.
Other varieties allowed
Besides the main grapes, the rules allow these varieties in some wines. Grape names link where a profile exists.
4 varieties · 4 wines
Arinarnoa, Castets, Marselan, Touriga Nacional
4 varieties · Bordeaux Supérieur, Bordeaux Supérieur, Bordeaux Supérieur
Colombard, Liliorila, Merlot Blanc, Ugni Blanc
In the vineyard and cellar: rules for every wine
3,300
Vines per hectare, minimum
Training
Systems allowed
taille à coursons (cots); taille à longs bois (astes)
Allowed
Enrichment (chaptalisation)
02 · Climate fingerprint
The climate
The growing season averages 17.8 °C, warm on Gregory Jones's scale, with 1,677 growing degree days (Winkler III).
The average year 1991–2020, vineyards at about 35 m
Monthly mean, °CRain, mmGrowing season
- Growing-season temperature
- 17.8 °C
- Warm · 17–19 °C (Jones)
- Growing degree days
- 1,677
- Region III: 1,667–1,943 degree days
- Growing-season rain
- 455 mm
- Of 801 mm a year
- Harvest rain
- 133 mm
- September–October
Copernicus ERA5-Land monthly averages at 5 vineyard points (Vineyard point 1, 48 m; Vineyard point 2, 4 m; Vineyard point 3, 77 m; Vineyard point 4, 25 m; Vineyard point 5, 20 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. Côtes du MarmandaisVery similarCompared with Bordeaux supérieur: same season warmth, similar rain.
2. Saint-SardosVery similarCompared with Bordeaux supérieur: same season warmth, similar rain.
3. Côtes de MontravelVery similarCompared with Bordeaux supérieur: 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, 133 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: Bordeaux supérieur (Cahier des charges de l’appellation d’origine contrôlée Bordeaux supérieur homologué par l’arrêté du 4 juin 2026 (AGRT2605247A) - BO n°24 du 11 juin 2026) · 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: The register lists only 'Bordeaux Supérieur'; the white wine the text also governs (more than 17 g/l sugar) is added as 'Bordeaux Supérieur blanc'. Density is 4,500 vines/ha for parcels planted since 1 August 2008, reducible to 3,300 with rows up to 3 m. Red grapes need 198 g/l sugar for merlot (189 for others); accessory and resistant-variety limits also apply to the holding's plantings (30% and under 5%). Reds are aged until 15 June after the harvest and whites until 31 December of the harvest year; total chemical weeding is banned.
- National tier (DOC/DOCG) not captured yet; rules extracted from the specification text.