What is made here
Wine colours
Colours the rules allow. Pick a colour to filter the rules and grapes below.
Where it is
Minervois in France
- Latitude
- 43.2°–43.4° N
- Vineyard altitude
- 52 m to 290 m
- Delimited vineyard land
- 30,099 ha
Lies within
Languedoc
Contains 2 appellations (outlined on the zone map)
Minervois-la-Livinière, Muscat de Saint-Jean-de-Minervois
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 Minervois must meet.
Blend rules
Minervois
- ≥ 60% grenache / lledoner pelut / mourvèdre / syrah · Main grape
- ≥ 20% mourvèdre / syrah · Main grape
- ≥ 50% carignan / cinsaut / grenache / mourvèdre / syrah · Main grape
- – carignan / cinsaut / piquepoul noir / rivairenc / terret noir · Allowed
- ≤ 10% piquepoul noir / rivairenc / terret noir · Allowed
Blend rules
Minervois blanc
- ≥ 80% bourboulenc / grenache blanc / maccabeu / marsanne / roussanne / vermentino · Main grape
- – clairette / grenache gris / muscat à petits grains / piquepoul blanc / terret blanc / viognier blanc · Allowed
- ≤ 10% muscat à petits grains · Allowed
- ≤ 10% viognier blanc · Allowed
Blend rules
Minervois rosé
- ≥ 60% grenache / lledoner pelut / mourvèdre / syrah · Main grape
- ≥ 20% mourvèdre / syrah · Main grape
- ≥ 50% carignan / cinsaut / grenache / mourvèdre / syrah · Main grape
- – bourboulenc / carignan / cinsaut / clairette / grenache blanc / grenache gris / maccabeu / marsanne / piquepoul blanc / piquepoul noir / rivairenc / roussanne / terret blanc / terret noir / vermentino · Allowed
- ≤ 20% Grenache Gris · Allowed
- ≤ 10% piquepoul noir / rivairenc / terret noir · Allowed
- ≤ 10% 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.
5 varieties · Minervois, Minervois blanc, Minervois rosé
Carignan, Cinsaut, Piquepoul Noir, Rivairenc, Terret Noir
15 varieties · Minervois
Bourboulenc, Carignan, Cinsaut, Clairette, Grenache Blanc, Grenache Gris, Maccabeu, Marsanne, Piquepoul Blanc, Piquepoul Noir, Rivairenc, Roussanne, Terret Blanc, Terret Noir, Vermentino
6 varieties · Minervois
Clairette, Grenache Gris, Muscat Blanc A Petits Grains, Piquepoul Blanc, Terret Blanc, Viognier
In the vineyard and cellar: rules for every wine
4,000
Vines per hectare, minimum
Training
Systems allowed
taille courte; taille Guyot simple (marsanne, roussanne, syrah only)
Permitted
Irrigation
02 · Climate fingerprint
The climate
The growing season averages 17.9 °C, warm on Gregory Jones's scale, with 1,680 growing degree days (Winkler III).
The average year 1991–2020, vineyards at about 173 m
Monthly mean, °CRain, mmGrowing season
- Growing-season temperature
- 17.9 °C
- Warm · 17–19 °C (Jones)
- Growing degree days
- 1,680
- Region III: 1,667–1,943 degree days
- Growing-season rain
- 463 mm
- Of 855 mm a year
- Harvest rain
- 175 mm
- September–October
Copernicus ERA5-Land monthly averages at 5 vineyard points (Vineyard point 1, 134 m; Vineyard point 2, 51 m; Vineyard point 3, 298 m; Vineyard point 4, 82 m; Vineyard point 5, 299 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. Graves supérieuresVery similarCompared with Minervois: same season warmth, similar rain.
2. Premières Côtes de BordeauxVery similarCompared with Minervois: same season warmth, similar rain.
3. Graves de VayresVery similarCompared with Minervois: 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, 175 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: Minervois (Cahier des charges de l’appellation d’origine contrôlée Minervois - BO n°50 du 10 décembre 2020) · 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 'Minervois'; the text covers still red, white and rosé, so white and rosé are recorded as 'Minervois blanc' and 'Minervois rosé'. The 60%, 20%, 10% and grenache gris/viognier limits apply to the farm's vineyard; the 50% (carignan, cinsaut, grenache, mourvèdre, syrah), 80% and white-grape limits apply to the blend, where no single variety may exceed 80% in reds and rosés. Red wines may have 4 g/l sugars when natural alcohol exceeds 14%. Guyot simple is allowed only for marsanne, roussanne and syrah (quoted separately in the text); no maximum alcohol after enrichment is stated.
- National tier (DOC/DOCG) not captured yet; rules extracted from the specification text.