What is made here
Wine colours
Colours the rules allow. Pick a colour to filter the rules and grapes below.
Where it is
Bordeaux in France
- Latitude
- 44.3°–45.6° N
- Vineyard altitude
- 6 m to 102 m
- Delimited vineyard land
- 235,270 ha
Covers the same area as
Bordeaux supérieur, 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 must meet.
Blend rules
Bordeaux Clairet
- – cabernet-sauvignon / cabernet franc / merlot / cot / carmenère / petit verdot · Main grape
- ≤ 10% arinarnoa / castets / marselan / touriga nacional / vidoc · Allowed
Blend rules
Bordeaux
- – cabernet-sauvignon / cabernet franc / merlot / cot / carmenère / petit verdot · Main grape
- ≤ 10% arinarnoa / castets / marselan / touriga nacional / vidoc · Allowed
; release from 15 January of the year after the harvest.
Blend rules
Bordeaux blanc
- – sémillon / sauvignon / sauvignon gris / muscadelle · Main grape
- ≤ 30% colombard / merlot blanc / ugni blanc · Allowed
- ≤ 10% alvarinho / floréal / liliorila / sauvignac / souvignier gris · Allowed
Blend rules
Bordeaux blanc avec sucres fermentescibles
- – sémillon / sauvignon / sauvignon gris / muscadelle · Main grape
- ≤ 30% colombard / merlot blanc / ugni blanc · Allowed
- ≤ 10% floréal / liliorila / sauvignac / souvignier gris · Allowed
Blend rules
Bordeaux rosé
- – cabernet-sauvignon / cabernet franc / merlot / cot / carmenère / petit verdot · Main grape
- ≤ 20% sémillon / sauvignon / sauvignon gris · Allowed
- ≤ 10% sauvignon / sauvignon gris · Allowed
- ≤ 10% arinarnoa / castets / marselan / touriga nacional / vidoc / alvarinho / floréal / liliorila / sauvignac / souvignier gris · Allowed
Blend rules
Bordeaux claret
- – cabernet-sauvignon / cabernet franc / merlot / cot / carmenère / petit verdot · Main grape
- ≤ 10% arinarnoa / castets / marselan / touriga nacional / vidoc · Allowed
Other varieties allowed
Besides the main grapes, the rules allow these varieties in some wines. Grape names link where a profile exists.
4 varieties · Bordeaux Clairet, Bordeaux Clairet
Arinarnoa, Castets, Marselan, Touriga Nacional
9 varieties · 5 wines
Alvarinho, Arinarnoa, Castets, Liliorila, Marselan, Sauvignon Blanc, Sauvignon Gris, Semillon, Touriga Nacional
5 varieties · Bordeaux
Alvarinho, 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 17.7 °C, warm on Gregory Jones's scale, with 1,650 growing degree days (Winkler II).
The average year 1991–2020, vineyards at about 55 m
Monthly mean, °CRain, mmGrowing season
- Growing-season temperature
- 17.7 °C
- Warm · 17–19 °C (Jones)
- Growing degree days
- 1,650
- Region II: 1,389–1,666 degree days
- Growing-season rain
- 451 mm
- Of 794 mm a year
- Harvest rain
- 132 mm
- September–October
Copernicus ERA5-Land monthly averages at 5 vineyard points (Vineyard point 1, 50 m; Vineyard point 2, 5 m; Vineyard point 3, 99 m; Vineyard point 4, 112 m; Vineyard point 5, 11 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. TihanyVery similarCompared with Bordeaux: same season warmth, similar rain.
2. Côtes de DurasVery similarCompared with Bordeaux: same season warmth, similar rain.
3. VillányVery similarCompared with Bordeaux: 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, 132 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 (Cahier des charges de l'appellation d'origine contrôlée Bordeaux - BO n°21 du 21 mai 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: Register name 'Bordeaux' is recorded as the red; white, white with fermentable sugars (5–60 g/l, limits strictly exclusive), rosé and light-red claret are added because the text gives them their own rules. Clairet is not in the maturity or alcohol tables by name; the rosé figures are applied as it is defined as a dark rosé. Minimum grape sugar is the lower 'other varieties' figure; merlot and sauvignon need more (e.g. 189 g/l for red). Density is 4,000 vines/ha for plantings since 2008, reducible to 3,300. Residual sugar of 3 g/l may rise to 5 (or 7 for red) with sufficient acidity; claret may be sweetened. Varietal limits apply both to holdings and to the blend.
- National tier (DOC/DOCG) not captured yet; rules extracted from the specification text.