What is made here
Wine colours
Colours the rules allow. Pick a colour to filter the rules and grapes below.
Where it is
Costières de Nîmes in France
- Latitude
- 43.5°–43.9° N
- Vineyard altitude
- 1 m to 111 m
- Delimited vineyard land
- 23,391 ha
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 Costières de Nîmes must meet.
Blend rules
Costières de Nîmes
- ≥ 60% grenache / mourvèdre / syrah · Main grape
- ≥ 20% mourvèdre / syrah · Main grape
- ≤ 10% marselan · Allowed
- – carignan / cinsaut · Allowed
- ≤ 10% variétés d’intérêt à fin d’adaptation · Allowed
Blend rules
Costières de Nîmes rosé
- ≥ 60% grenache / mourvèdre / syrah · Main grape
- ≥ 20% mourvèdre / syrah · Main grape
- ≤ 10% marselan · Allowed
- – carignan / cinsaut · Allowed
- ≤ 10% variétés d’intérêt à fin d’adaptation · Allowed
- ≤ 20% white-wine varieties · Allowed
Blend rules
Costières de Nîmes blanc
- ≥ 60% grenache blanc / marsanne / roussanne · Main grape
- ≤ 20% Viognier · Allowed
- – bourboulenc / clairette / macabeu / vermentino · Allowed
- ≤ 10% variétés d’intérêt à fin d’adaptation · Allowed
Other varieties allowed
Besides the main grapes, the rules allow these varieties in some wines. Grape names link where a profile exists.
5 varieties · Costières de Nîmes
In the vineyard and cellar: rules for every wine
4,000
Vines per hectare, minimum
Training
Systems allowed
taille courte; cordon de Royat; taille Guyot simple
Permitted, with limits
Irrigation
02 · Climate fingerprint
The climate
The growing season averages 19.6 °C, hot on Gregory Jones's scale, with 2,050 growing degree days (Winkler IV).
The average year 1991–2020, vineyards at about 48 m
Monthly mean, °CRain, mmGrowing season
- Growing-season temperature
- 19.6 °C
- Hot · 19–21 °C (Jones)
- Growing degree days
- 2,050
- Region IV: 1,944–2,221 degree days
- Growing-season rain
- 440 mm
- Of 768 mm a year
- Harvest rain
- 213 mm
- September–October
Copernicus ERA5-Land monthly averages at 5 vineyard points (Vineyard point 1, 62 m; Vineyard point 2, 1 m; Vineyard point 3, 6 m; Vineyard point 4, 26 m; Vineyard point 5, 147 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. Châteauneuf-du-PapeVery similarCompared with Costières de Nîmes: same season warmth, similar rain.
2. Falerno del MassicoVery similarCompared with Costières de Nîmes: same season warmth, similar rain.
3. Colli AlbaniVery similarCompared with Costières de Nîmes: 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, 213 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: Costières de Nîmes (Cahier des charges de l'AOC Costières de Nîmes - BO n°11 du 13 mars 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)
- 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 one name but the text governs red, rosé and white, so rosé and white are added. Red/rosé need grenache+mourvèdre+syrah at least 60% and mourvèdre+syrah at least 20% of the holding's vineyard and principal grapes at least 50% of the blend; whites need at least two principal varieties (each at most 80% of the vineyard, together at least 50%), and adaptation varieties are capped at 5% of the vineyard. Reds above 14% natural alcohol may have 4 g/l sugar; Guyot simple only for syrah and viognier; irrigated parcels are limited to 8000 kg/ha.
- National tier (DOC/DOCG) not captured yet; rules extracted from the specification text.