What is made here
Wine colours
The only colour the rules allow.
Where it is
Alba in Italy
- Latitude
- 44.4°–44.9° N
- Vineyard altitude
- 226 m to 509 m
- Production zone
- 87,269 ha
Contains 7 appellations (outlined on the zone map)
Barbaresco, Barbera d'Alba, Barolo, Dolcetto di Diano d'Alba, Nebbiolo d'Alba, Roero, Verduno Pelaverga
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.
01 · What the law says
The rules
Limits on grapes, yields, ripeness and ageing that every wine labelled Alba must meet.
Blend rules
Alba
- 70–85% Nebbiolo · Main grape
- 15–30% Barbera · Main grape
- ≤ 5% other non-aromatic red-berried varieties authorised in Piedmont · Others allowed
At least 17 months' ageing; release from 1 May of the second year after the harvest.
Blend rules
Alba Riserva
- 70–85% Nebbiolo · Main grape
- 15–30% Barbera · Main grape
- ≤ 5% other non-aromatic red-berried varieties authorised in Piedmont · Others allowed
At least 23 months' ageing; release from 1 November of the second year after the harvest.
Blend rules
Alba (con Menzione Vigna)
- 70–85% Nebbiolo · Main grape
- 15–30% Barbera · Main grape
- ≤ 5% other non-aromatic red-berried varieties authorised in Piedmont · Others allowed
At least 17 months' ageing; release from 1 May of the second 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.
46 varieties · Alba, Alba Riserva, Alba (con Menzione Vigna)
Albarossa, Ancellotta, Avana', Avarengo, Becuet, Bonarda, Brachetto, Bragat Rosa, Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Chatus, Ciliegiolo, Cornarea, Croatina, Dolcetto, Doux d'Henry, Durasa, Freisa, Gamay, Gamba Rossa, Grignolino, Lambrusca di Alessandria, Malvasia Nera Lunga, Malvasia di Casorzo, Malvasia di Schierano, Merlot, Montanera, Moscato Nero di Acqui, Ner d'Ala, Neretta Cuneese, Neretto di Bairo, Passau, Pelaverga, Pelaverga Piccolo, Petit Verdot, Pinot Noir, Plassa, Quagliano, Ruche', Sangiovese, Slarina, Syrah, Teroldego, Uva Rara, Uvalino, Vespolina
In the vineyard and cellar: rules for every wine
3,300
Vines per hectare, minimum
580 m
Highest vineyard allowed
Training
Systems allowed
controspalliera (guyot)
No forcing
Forcing the vines is prohibited
Cellar
Where the wine must be made
Within the production zone
Allowed
Enrichment (chaptalisation)
02 · Climate fingerprint
The climate
The growing season averages 17.6 °C, warm on Gregory Jones's scale, with 1,629 growing degree days (Winkler II).
The average year 1991–2020, vineyards at about 341 m
Monthly mean, °CRain, mmGrowing season
- Growing-season temperature
- 17.6 °C
- Warm · 17–19 °C (Jones)
- Growing degree days
- 1,629
- Region II: 1,389–1,666 degree days
- Growing-season rain
- 602 mm
- Of 1,018 mm a year
- Harvest rain
- 205 mm
- September–October
Copernicus ERA5-Land monthly averages at 5 vineyard points (Vineyard point 1, 335 m; Vineyard point 2, 569 m; Vineyard point 3, 264 m; Vineyard point 4, 194 m; Vineyard point 5, 345 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. TursanVery similarCompared with Alba: same season warmth, similar rain.
2. Collina TorineseVery similarCompared with Alba: same season warmth, similar rain.
3. Freisa di ChieriVery similarCompared with Alba: 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, 205 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
- Disciplinare di produzione: Alba · Ministero dell'agricoltura, della sovranità alimentare e delle foreste (MASAF) · Official act
- 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: Vigna wines have lower yields for young vineyards (4.3 t/ha in year three rising to 7.2 t/ha from year seven) and may not be enriched. Vinification and ageing are also allowed anywhere in Cuneo province; Alba riserva with the vigna mention is also allowed.
- National tier (DOC/DOCG) not captured yet; rules extracted from the specification text.