What is made here
Wine colours
Colours the rules allow. Pick a colour to filter the rules and grapes below.
Where it is
Côtes du Rhône in France
- Latitude
- 43.8°–45.5° N
- Vineyard altitude
- 36 m to 342 m
- Delimited vineyard land
- 132,294 ha
Contains 17 appellations (outlined on the zone map)
Beaumes de Venise, Cairanne, Châteauneuf-du-Pape, Condrieu, Cornas, Côte Rôtie, Côtes du Rhône Villages, Crozes-Hermitage, Gigondas, Hermitage, Lirac, Muscat de Beaumes-de-Venise, Rasteau, Saint-Péray, Tavel, Vacqueyras, Vinsobres
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 Côtes du Rhône must meet.
Blend rules
Côtes du Rhône Primeur/Nouveau
- ≥ 60% grenache / mourvèdre / syrah · Main grape
- ≥ 30% Grenache · Main grape
- ≥ 20% mourvèdre / syrah · Main grape
- – bourboulenc, brun argenté, caladoc, carignan, cinsaut, clairette, clairette rose, counoise, couston, grenache blanc, grenache gris, marsanne, marselan, muscardin, piquepoul blanc, piquepoul noir, roussanne, terret noir, ugni blanc, viognier · Allowed
- ≤ 10% caladoc / couston / marselan · Allowed
- ≤ 10% Carignan blanc / Floréal / Rolle / Vidoc · Allowed
- ≤ 5% white grapes · Allowed
Blend rules
Côtes du Rhône
- ≥ 60% grenache / mourvèdre / syrah · Main grape
- ≥ 30% Grenache · Main grape
- ≥ 20% mourvèdre / syrah · Main grape
- – bourboulenc, brun argenté, caladoc, carignan, cinsaut, clairette, clairette rose, counoise, couston, grenache blanc, grenache gris, marsanne, marselan, muscardin, piquepoul blanc, piquepoul noir, roussanne, terret noir, ugni blanc, viognier · Allowed
- ≤ 10% caladoc / couston / marselan · Allowed
- ≤ 10% Carignan blanc / Floréal / Rolle / Vidoc · Allowed
- ≤ 5% white grapes · Allowed
Blend rules
Côtes du Rhône blanc
- ≥ 80% bourboulenc / clairette / grenache blanc / marsanne / roussanne / viognier · Main grape
- – Clairette rose / grenache gris / piquepoul blanc / ugni blanc · Allowed
- ≤ 10% Carignan blanc / Floréal / Rolle · Allowed
Blend rules
Côtes du Rhône rosé
- ≥ 60% grenache / mourvèdre / syrah · Main grape
- ≥ 30% Grenache · Main grape
- ≥ 20% mourvèdre / syrah · Main grape
- – bourboulenc, brun argenté, caladoc, carignan, cinsaut, clairette, clairette rose, counoise, couston, grenache blanc, grenache gris, marsanne, marselan, muscardin, piquepoul blanc, piquepoul noir, roussanne, terret noir, ugni blanc, viognier · Allowed
- ≤ 10% caladoc / couston / marselan · Allowed
- ≤ 10% Carignan blanc / Floréal / Rolle / Vidoc · Allowed
- ≤ 20% white grapes · Allowed
Other varieties allowed
Besides the main grapes, the rules allow these varieties in some wines. Grape names link where a profile exists.
20 varieties · 6 wines
Bourboulenc, Brun Argenté, Caladoc, Carignan, Cinsaut, Clairette, Clairette Rose, Counoise, Couston, Grenache Blanc, Grenache Gris, Marsanne, Marselan, Muscardin, Piquepoul Blanc, Piquepoul Noir, Roussanne, Terret Noir, Ugni Blanc, Viognier
2 varieties · Côtes du Rhône
In the vineyard and cellar: rules for every wine
Training
Systems allowed
gobelet; cordon de Royat
Permitted
Irrigation
Allowed
Enrichment (chaptalisation)
02 · Climate fingerprint
The climate
The growing season averages 18.4 °C, warm on Gregory Jones's scale, with 1,792 growing degree days (Winkler III).
The average year 1991–2020, vineyards at about 144 m
Monthly mean, °CRain, mmGrowing season
- Growing-season temperature
- 18.4 °C
- Warm · 17–19 °C (Jones)
- Growing degree days
- 1,792
- Region III: 1,667–1,943 degree days
- Growing-season rain
- 511 mm
- Of 855 mm a year
- Harvest rain
- 199 mm
- September–October
Copernicus ERA5-Land monthly averages at 5 vineyard points (Vineyard point 1, 147 m; Vineyard point 2, 270 m; Vineyard point 3, 234 m; Vineyard point 4, 25 m; Vineyard point 5, 42 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. Colli Romagna centraleVery similarCompared with Côtes du Rhône: same season warmth, similar rain.
2. OrvietoVery similarCompared with Côtes du Rhône: same season warmth, similar rain.
3. Vin Santo del Chianti ClassicoVery similarCompared with Côtes du Rhône: 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, 199 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: Côtes du Rhône (Cahier des charges modifié de l’appellation d’origine contrôlée Côtes du Rhône, homologué par l’arrêté du 10 décembre 2024 (AGRT2428433A) - BO n°51 du 19 décemb) · 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 'Côtes du Rhône' and its primeur/nouveau; the text also governs white and rosé separately (recorded as 'Côtes du Rhône blanc' and 'Côtes du Rhône rosé'), and primeur/nouveau may be red or rosé. Minimum sugar and natural alcohol differ by location (natural alcohol 11% south of the Montélimar parallel, 10.5% north; sugar 161–189 g/l by grape colour and location), so they are left null. Grape limits other than the 60% principal-grape share and 10% adaptation-variety share of the blend apply to the farm's vineyard; grenache ≥30% does not apply north of Montélimar. Residual sugar may reach 4 g/l when natural alcohol exceeds 14%. No minimum planting density is given (maximum 2.5 m² per vine); viognier may be Guyot-pruned; irrigated plots are limited to 6500 kg/ha; total production above 70 hl/ha loses the appellation.
- National tier (DOC/DOCG) not captured yet; rules extracted from the specification text.