What is made here
Wine colours
The only colour the rules allow.
Where it is
Saint-Emilion Grand Cru in France
- Latitude
- 44.8°–45.0° N
- Vineyard altitude
- 5 m to 78 m
- Delimited vineyard land
- 7,103 ha
Lies within
Bordeaux supérieur, Bordeaux, Crémant de Bordeaux
Covers the same area as
Saint-Emilion
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.
01 · What the law says
The rules
Limits on grapes, yields, ripeness and ageing that every wine labelled Saint-Emilion Grand Cru must meet.
Blend rules
Saint-Emilion Grand Cru
- – cabernet franc / cabernet-sauvignon / carmenère / cot / merlot · Main grape
- ≤ 10% Petit Verdot · Allowed
; release from 15 May of the second year after the harvest.
Blend rules
Saint-Emilion Grand Cru Grand Cru Classé/Premier Grand Cru Classé
- – cabernet franc / cabernet-sauvignon / carmenère / cot / merlot · Main grape
- ≤ 10% Petit Verdot · Allowed
; release from 15 May of the second year after the harvest.
Other varieties allowed
Besides the main grapes, the rules allow these varieties in some wines. Grape names link where a profile exists.
1 varieties · Saint-Emilion Grand Cru, Saint-Emilion Grand Cru Grand Cru Classé/Premier Grand Cru Classé
In the vineyard and cellar: rules for every wine
5,500
Vines per hectare, minimum
Training
Systems allowed
taille Guyot simple; taille Guyot double; cordon de Royat; éventail; taille à longs bois (astes)
Permitted
Irrigation
Allowed
Enrichment (chaptalisation)
02 · Climate fingerprint
The climate
The growing season averages 17.9 °C, warm on Gregory Jones's scale, with 1,688 growing degree days (Winkler III).
The average year 1991–2020, vineyards at about 31 m
Monthly mean, °CRain, mmGrowing season
- Growing-season temperature
- 17.9 °C
- Warm · 17–19 °C (Jones)
- Growing degree days
- 1,688
- Region III: 1,667–1,943 degree days
- Growing-season rain
- 457 mm
- Of 798 mm a year
- Harvest rain
- 129 mm
- September–October
Copernicus ERA5-Land monthly averages at 5 vineyard points (Vineyard point 1, 63 m; Vineyard point 2, 21 m; Vineyard point 3, 58 m; Vineyard point 4, 4 m; Vineyard point 5, 8 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. CabardèsVery similarCompared with Saint-Emilion Grand Cru: same season warmth, similar rain.
2. BrulhoisVery similarCompared with Saint-Emilion Grand Cru: same season warmth, similar rain.
3. Graves supérieuresVery similarCompared with Saint-Emilion Grand Cru: 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, 129 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: Saint-Emilion Grand Cru (Cahier des charges de l'AOP Saint-Emilion Grand Cru homologué par arrêté du 27 juillet 2023 publié au JORF du 5 août 2023 - AGRT2318389A - BO n°34 du 24 août 20) · 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 cahier sets no separate production rules for 'grand cru classé' or 'premier grand cru classé', so both register names carry the same rules. Petit verdot is limited to 10% of the holding's plantings and of the final blend; minimum grape sugar is 194 g/l for merlot and 189 g/l for others; irrigated parcels 5500 kg/ha; bottling in glass by the grower or cooperative from 1 February of the second year; organic or HVE certification required; maximum 12 buds per vine.
- National tier (DOC/DOCG) not captured yet; rules extracted from the specification text.