What is made here
Wine colours
The only colour the rules allow.
Where it is
Volnay in France
- Latitude
- 47.0°–47.0° N
- Vineyard altitude
- 218 m to 364 m
- Delimited vineyard land
- 242 ha
Lies within
Bourgogne aligoté, Bourgogne, Crémant de Bourgogne, Bourgogne mousseux, Coteaux Bourguignons, Bourgogne Passe-tout-grains
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 Volnay must meet.
Blend rules
Volnay
- – Pinot Noir · Main grape
- ≤ 15% chardonnay / pinot blanc / pinot gris · Allowed
; release from 30 June of the year after the harvest.
Blend rules
Volnay Premier Cru
- – Pinot Noir · Main grape
- ≤ 15% chardonnay / pinot blanc / pinot gris · Allowed
; release from 30 June 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.
3 varieties · Volnay, Volnay Premier Cru
In the vineyard and cellar: rules for every wine
9,000
Vines per hectare, minimum
Training
Systems allowed
cordon de Royat; cordon bilatéral; gobelet; éventail; taille Guyot simple
Prohibited
Irrigation
Allowed
Enrichment (chaptalisation)
02 · Climate fingerprint
The climate
The growing season averages 15.9 °C, intermediate on Gregory Jones's scale, with 1,281 growing degree days (Winkler Ib).
The average year 1991–2020, vineyards at about 280 m
Monthly mean, °CRain, mmGrowing season
- Growing-season temperature
- 15.9 °C
- Intermediate · 15–17 °C (Jones)
- Growing degree days
- 1,281
- Region Ib: 1,111–1,388 degree days
- Growing-season rain
- 527 mm
- Of 912 mm a year
- Harvest rain
- 163 mm
- September–October
Copernicus ERA5-Land monthly averages at 5 vineyard points (Vineyard point 1, 227 m; Vineyard point 2, 365 m; Vineyard point 3, 224 m; Vineyard point 4, 366 m; Vineyard point 5, 219 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. ChâteaumeillantVery similarCompared with Volnay: same season warmth, similar rain.
2. Saint-PourçainVery similarCompared with Volnay: same season warmth, similar rain.
3. Coteaux BourguignonsVery similarCompared with Volnay: 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, 163 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: Volnay (Cahier des charges de l'appellation d'origine contrôlée Volnay homologué par l'arrêté du 20 février 2026 publié au Journal Officiel de la République du 25 févri) · 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 15% limit on accessory varieties (chardonnay, pinot blanc, pinot gris, interplanted only) applies within each vineyard parcel, not to the wine. Pruning is short or single Guyot with at most 8 buds per vine; wines are aged until at least 15 June of the year after the harvest, at no more than 25°C, with at most 0.4 g/l malic acid at bottling; only subtractive enrichment up to 10% concentration and no oak pieces; chemical weeding is banned in premier cru parcels. The 29 listed climats (with or without 'premier cru') follow the premier cru rules but are not separate products in the register.
- National tier (DOC/DOCG) not captured yet; rules extracted from the specification text.