What is made here
Wine colours
Colours the rules allow. Pick a colour to filter the rules and grapes below.
Where it is
Hrvatska Istra in Croatia
- Latitude
- 44.8°–45.5° N
- Vineyard altitude
- 39 m to 318 m
- Production zone
- 281,105 ha
Lies within
Primorska Hrvatska
Contains 1 appellation (outlined on the zone map)
Muškat momjanski
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 Hrvatska Istra must meet.
Other varieties allowed
Besides the main grapes, the rules allow these varieties in some wines. Grape names link where a profile exists.
31 varieties · Hrvatska Istra likersko vino, Hrvatska Istra vrhunsko pjenušavo vino, Hrvatska Istra kvalitetno biser vino
Alicante Bouschet, Ancellotta, Barbera, Blaufrankisch, Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Carmenère, Chardonnay, Gamay Teinturier, Hrvatica, Malvazija Istarska, Manzoni Bijeli, Merlot, Moscato Giallo, Muscat Blanc, Muscat Noir, Muscat Ottonel, Muškat Ruža Crni, Nebbiolo, Petit Verdot, Pinot Blanc, Pinot Grigio, Pinot Noir, Refosco, Semillon, Syrah, Teran, Trebbiano Toscano, Verduzzo Friulano, Viognier, Žlahtina
02 · Climate fingerprint
The climate
The growing season averages 18.4 °C, warm on Gregory Jones's scale, with 1,803 growing degree days (Winkler III).
The average year 1991–2020, vineyards at about 214 m
Monthly mean, °CRain, mmGrowing season
- Growing-season temperature
- 18.4 °C
- Warm · 17–19 °C (Jones)
- Growing degree days
- 1,803
- Region III: 1,667–1,943 degree days
- Growing-season rain
- 753 mm
- Of 1,353 mm a year
- Harvest rain
- 324 mm
- September–October
Copernicus ERA5-Land monthly averages at 5 vineyard points (Vineyard point 1, 319 m; Vineyard point 2, 55 m; Vineyard point 3, 5 m; Vineyard point 4, 418 m; Vineyard point 5, 273 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. Piave MalanotteVery similarCompared with Hrvatska Istra: same season warmth, similar rain.
2. Riviera del Garda BrescianoVery similarCompared with Hrvatska Istra: same season warmth, similar rain.
3. Capriano del ColleVery similarCompared with Hrvatska Istra: 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, 324 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)
- 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
- Product specification: Hrvatska Istra (PDO-HR-A1652 Hrvatska Istra - TC.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: Products are the specification's quality categories (quality wine KZP, top-quality wine KZP, dessert, archive, liqueur, top-quality sparkling and quality semi-sparkling wine); the white/rosé/red split follows the sugar-free extract table (min_dry_extract_g_l = sugar-free extract). Enrichment and sweetening are allowed for quality wine (total strength raised by at most 4 % vol.) but prohibited for top-quality wine, as are acidification and deacidification. Archive wine must be kept at least five years, three of them in bottle. Liqueur wine maximum actual strength 22 % vol.; sparkling wine cuvée min. 8.5 % vol. total and at least 3 bar; semi-sparkling base wine min. 9 % vol. total, 1–2.5 bar. Teran wines may contain other grapes up to 15 % for rosé or sparkling, 10 % for young wine and 5 % for mature Teran. Sub-zones (vinogorja): Zapadna Istra, Centralna Istra, Istočna Istra. Main varieties Malvazija istarska, Merlot, Teran, Cabernet sauvignon, Refošk, Frankovka.
- National tier (DOC/DOCG) not captured yet; rules extracted from the specification text.