What is made here
Wine colours
Colours the rules allow. Pick a colour to filter the rules and grapes below.
Where it is
Σητεία in Greece
- Latitude
- 35.0°–35.4° N
- Production zone
- 32,276 ha
Covers the same area as
Malvasia Σητείας
Worked out from the boundaries (smallest container first). They follow whole communes, so a neighbour sharing a commune can show up here too.
Boundary drawn from whole communes, so it is a little larger than the legal zone. Boundary: Eurac Research PDO inventory (CC0). 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 Σητεία must meet.
Blend rules
Σητεία Οίνος Λευκός Ξηρός
- ≥ 80% Λιάτικο · Main grape
- ≤ 20% Μανδηλαριά · Allowed
Blend rules
Σητεία Οίνος Λευκός Ξηρός Επιλεγμένος / Réserve
- ≥ 80% Λιάτικο · Main grape
- ≤ 20% Μανδηλαριά · Allowed
At least 24 months' ageing.
Blend rules
Σητεία Οίνος Λευκός Ξηρός Ειδικά Επιλεγμένος / Grande Réserve
- ≥ 80% Λιάτικο · Main grape
- ≤ 20% Μανδηλαριά · Allowed
At least 48 months' ageing.
Other varieties allowed
Besides the main grapes, the rules allow these varieties in some wines. Grape names link where a profile exists.
2 varieties ·
Liatiko, Mandilaria
4 varieties ·
Liatiko, Mandilaria, Thrapsathiri, Vilana
In the vineyard and cellar: rules for every wine
Training
Systems allowed
κυπελλοειδή (goblet); γραμμικά σχήματα (linear/cordon); short pruning
Prohibited
Irrigation
02 · Climate fingerprint
The climate
The growing season averages 22.4 °C, very hot on Gregory Jones's scale, with 2,650 growing degree days (Winkler V).
The average year 1991–2020, vineyards at about 147 m
Monthly mean, °CRain, mmGrowing season
- Growing-season temperature
- 22.4 °C
- Very hot · above 21 °C (Jones)
- Growing degree days
- 2,650
- Region V: 2,222 and over degree days
- Growing-season rain
- 49 mm
- Of 283 mm a year
- Harvest rain
- 24 mm
- September–October
Copernicus ERA5-Land monthly averages at 3 vineyard points (Vineyard point 1, 101 m; Vineyard point 2, 135 m; Vineyard point 3, 204 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. Valle de la OrotavaVery similarCompared with Σητεία: same season warmth, wetter (+60 mm).
2. ΠεζάVery similarCompared with Σητεία: same season warmth, wetter (+64 mm).
3. Χάνδακας - CandiaVery similarCompared with Σητεία: same season warmth, wetter (+76 mm).
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, 24 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
- ERA5-Land monthly averaged data (reanalysis-era5-land-monthly-means) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), Climate Data Store · CC BY 4.0 (Copernicus licence)
- Product specification: Σητεία (ΣΗΤΕΙΑ Προδιαγραφή τελικό.doc) · National authority, as filed in the EU register (eAmbrosia) · Official document
- 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: White dry wine's minimum actual strength is misprinted '11,,5 %vol.' and is left null. Red dry wine is co-fermented Liatiko (at least 80 %) and Mandilaria (at most 20 %); white is Vilana 70 % and Thrapsathiri 30 %. The sweet red (vin de liqueur) is fortified before fermentation with wine alcohol of at least 95 % vol.; the vin doux naturel is fortified during fermentation (5–10 % of must volume); the naturally sweet wine is made from sun- or shade-dried grapes with no additions; all three from Liatiko only, actual strength 15.0–22.0 % vol. for the fortified types. Vines over four years old from grafting, short pruning; non-traditional techniques prohibited.
- National tier (DOC/DOCG) not captured yet; rules extracted from the specification text.