What is made here
Wine colours
Colours the rules allow. Pick a colour to filter the rules and grapes below.
Where it is
Touraine in France
- Latitude
- 46.8°–47.6° N
- Vineyard altitude
- 46 m to 118 m
- Delimited vineyard land
- 38,908 ha
Lies within
Crémant de Loire, Rosé de Loire
Contains 5 appellations (outlined on the zone map)
Bourgueil, Chinon, Montlouis-sur-Loire, Saint-Nicolas-de-Bourgueil, Vouvray
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 Touraine must meet.
Blend rules
Touraine Gamay
- ≥ 85% Gamay · Main grape
- – cabernet franc / cabernet-sauvignon / cot / pinot noir · Allowed
Blend rules
Touraine Amboise
- ≥ 70% Malbec · Main grape
- – Gamay · Allowed
; release from 15 May of the year after the harvest.
Blend rules
Touraine Mesland
- ≥ 80% Gamay · Main grape
- – cabernet franc / cot · Allowed
Blend rules
Touraine Azay-le-Rideau
- ≥ 60% Grolleau · Main grape
- ≤ 10% cabernet franc / cabernet-sauvignon · Allowed
- – cot / gamay · Allowed
; release from 15 January of the year after the harvest.
Blend rules
Touraine Chenonceaux
- 65–80% Malbec · Main grape
- 10–50% Cabernet Franc · Allowed
; release from 1 September of the 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.
4 varieties · Touraine
2 varieties · Touraine Mesland, Touraine Mesland
1 varieties · Touraine Chenonceaux
4 varieties · Touraine Gamay
1 varieties · Touraine Amboise
4 varieties · Touraine Azay-le-Rideau
1 varieties · Touraine
2 varieties · Touraine Mesland
In the vineyard and cellar: rules for every wine
4,500
Vines per hectare, minimum
Training
Systems allowed
taille longue; taille courte
Allowed
Enrichment (chaptalisation)
02 · Climate fingerprint
The climate
The growing season averages 16.3 °C, intermediate on Gregory Jones's scale, with 1,358 growing degree days (Winkler Ib).
The average year 1991–2020, vineyards at about 90 m
Monthly mean, °CRain, mmGrowing season
- Growing-season temperature
- 16.3 °C
- Intermediate · 15–17 °C (Jones)
- Growing degree days
- 1,358
- Region Ib: 1,111–1,388 degree days
- Growing-season rain
- 418 mm
- Of 744 mm a year
- Harvest rain
- 126 mm
- September–October
Copernicus ERA5-Land monthly averages at 5 vineyard points (Vineyard point 1, 72 m; Vineyard point 2, 86 m; Vineyard point 3, 112 m; Vineyard point 4, 82 m; Vineyard point 5, 98 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. Haut-PoitouVery similarCompared with Touraine: same season warmth, similar rain.
2. ChevernyVery similarCompared with Touraine: same season warmth, similar rain.
3. Fiefs VendéensVery similarCompared with Touraine: 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, 126 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: Touraine (Cahier des charges de l'AOC Touraine - BO n°37 du 11 septembre 2025) · 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: Several colours per register name are split into products by colour (and, for Amboise white, by dry vs demi-sec). Minimum vine density is 4500/ha for Touraine, Mesland and Azay-le-Rideau, 6000 for Amboise, 5000 for Chenonceaux and 5200 for Oisly; Amboise allows Guyot simple, gobelet/éventail or cordon with 11 buds per vine. Variety limits on the encépagement (Amboise, Azay, Chenonceaux cabernet franc, Mesland) apply to the holding's vineyard; holdings west of Tours may use cabernet franc as principal red grape (≥80% of the blend). Touraine and Chenonceaux/Oisly whites may have up to 6 g/l sugar if unenriched with 12.5%/13% actual alcohol; Azay-le-Rideau and Mesland whites/rosés may also be demi-sec (over 9 and up to 18 g/l), not split out here; the Amboise demi-sec product also covers the moelleux and doux whites named in the ripeness table (no sugar limit given for these). Amboise enrichment is limited to 1%. Primeur reds are hand-harvested and made by carbonic maceration; release dates for other still wines follow the general D.645-17 rule.
- National tier (DOC/DOCG) not captured yet; rules extracted from the specification text.