What is made here
Wine colours
Colours the rules allow. Pick a colour to filter the rules and grapes below.
Where it is
Les Baux de Provence in France
- Latitude
- 43.7°–43.8° N
- Vineyard altitude
- 31 m to 206 m
- Delimited vineyard land
- 3,291 ha
Lies within
Coteaux d'Aix-en-Provence
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 Les Baux de Provence must meet.
Blend rules
Les Baux de Provence
- ≥ 50% grenache / mourvèdre / syrah · Main grape
- ≤ 90% grenache / mourvèdre / syrah N (each) · Main grape
- ≤ 30% carignan / cinsaut / counoise N (each) · Allowed
- ≤ 20% Cabernet Sauvignon · Allowed
; release from 15 September of the year after the harvest (end of élevage).
Blend rules
Les Baux de Provence rosé
- ≥ 50% cinsaut / grenache / syrah · Main grape
- ≤ 90% cinsaut / grenache / syrah N (each) · Main grape
- ≤ 30% carignan / counoise / mourvèdre N (each) · Allowed
- ≤ 20% Cabernet Sauvignon · Allowed
- ≤ 20% white varieties (clairette, grenache blanc, vermentino, roussanne, bourboulenc, marsanne, ugni blanc B) · Allowed
Blend rules
Les Baux de Provence blanc
- ≥ 60% all principal varieties together · Main grape
- ≤ 90% clairette / grenache blanc / vermentino B (each) · Main grape
- 10–30% Roussanne · Allowed
- ≤ 30% bourboulenc / marsanne / ugni blanc · Allowed
; release from 1 April of the year after the harvest (end of élevage).
Other varieties allowed
Besides the main grapes, the rules allow these varieties in some wines. Grape names link where a profile exists.
4 varieties · Les Baux de Provence, Les Baux de Provence rosé, Les Baux de Provence blanc
4 varieties · Les Baux de Provence
4 varieties · Les Baux de Provence
In the vineyard and cellar: rules for every wine
4,000
Vines per hectare, minimum
Training
Systems allowed
gobelet; cordon de Royat; taille Guyot (syrah N only)
Permitted
Irrigation
02 · Climate fingerprint
The climate
The growing season averages 19.7 °C, hot on Gregory Jones's scale, with 2,078 growing degree days (Winkler IV).
The average year 1991–2020, vineyards at about 77 m
Monthly mean, °CRain, mmGrowing season
- Growing-season temperature
- 19.7 °C
- Hot · 19–21 °C (Jones)
- Growing degree days
- 2,078
- Region IV: 1,944–2,221 degree days
- Growing-season rain
- 397 mm
- Of 689 mm a year
- Harvest rain
- 181 mm
- September–October
Copernicus ERA5-Land monthly averages at 5 vineyard points (Vineyard point 1, 140 m; Vineyard point 2, 2 m; Vineyard point 3, 7 m; Vineyard point 4, 86 m; Vineyard point 5, 148 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. Lacrima di MorroVery similarCompared with Les Baux de Provence: same season warmth, similar rain.
2. Ansonica Costa dell'ArgentarioVery similarCompared with Les Baux de Provence: same season warmth, similar rain.
3. ΡαψάνηVery similarCompared with Les Baux de Provence: 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, 181 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: Les Baux de Provence (Cahier des charges de l'AOC Les Baux de Provence , homologué par arrêté du 24 octobre 2024, publié au JORF du 30 octobre 2024 - BO n°45 du 7 novembre 2024) · 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 'Les Baux de Provence'; that product holds the red rules and the rosé and white wines, governed separately, are added. In the vineyard at least two principal varieties are required and they must make up at least 60% (each at most 90%); rosé vineyards may include up to 10% white varieties. Wines are sold at the end of élevage (whites 1 April, reds 15 September of the year after the harvest); irrigated parcels are limited to 6000 kg/ha; herbicides and wood chips are banned.
- National tier (DOC/DOCG) not captured yet; rules extracted from the specification text.