What is made here
Wine colours
Colours the rules allow. Pick a colour to filter the rules and grapes below.
Where it is
Saint-Joseph in France
- Latitude
- 44.9°–45.4° N
- Vineyard altitude
- 167 m to 370 m
- Delimited vineyard land
- 3,437 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 Saint-Joseph must meet.
Blend rules
Saint-Joseph
- ≥ 90% Syrah · Main grape
- ≤ 10% marsanne / roussanne · Allowed
Other varieties allowed
Besides the main grapes, the rules allow these varieties in some wines. Grape names link where a profile exists.
In the vineyard and cellar: rules for every wine
4,500
Vines per hectare, minimum
Training
Systems allowed
gobelet; cordon de Royat; taille Guyot simple
02 · Climate fingerprint
The climate
The growing season averages 16.8 °C, intermediate on Gregory Jones's scale, with 1,462 growing degree days (Winkler II).
The average year 1991–2020, vineyards at about 266 m
Monthly mean, °CRain, mmGrowing season
- Growing-season temperature
- 16.8 °C
- Intermediate · 15–17 °C (Jones)
- Growing degree days
- 1,462
- Region II: 1,389–1,666 degree days
- Growing-season rain
- 609 mm
- Of 981 mm a year
- Harvest rain
- 206 mm
- September–October
Copernicus ERA5-Land monthly averages at 5 vineyard points (Vineyard point 1, 309 m; Vineyard point 2, 247 m; Vineyard point 3, 299 m; Vineyard point 4, 205 m; Vineyard point 5, 269 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.
Lower confidence:Monthly reanalysis in moderately complex terrain; not yet checked against a weather station.
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. Zagorje – MeđimurjeVery similarCompared with Saint-Joseph: same season warmth, similar rain.
2. Zapadna kontinentalna HrvatskaVery similarCompared with Saint-Joseph: same season warmth, similar rain.
3. BéarnVery similarCompared with Saint-Joseph: 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, 206 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-Joseph (Cahier des charges de l'AOC Saint Joseph homologué par l'arrêté du 4 juillet 2024, publié au JORF du 7 juillet 2024 - BO n°29 du 18 juillet 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)
- 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 'Saint-Joseph'; that product holds the red rules and the white wines, which the text governs separately, are added as 'Saint-Joseph blanc'. The 10% accessory limit is per vineyard (pieds) and syrah must also be at least 90% of the red blend; residual sugar is 3 g/l for wines with natural alcohol up to 13.5% and 4 g/l above. Grapes must be hand-picked, wood chips are banned and the overall yield limit is 50 hl/ha.
- National tier (DOC/DOCG) not captured yet; rules extracted from the specification text.