What is made here
Wine colours
The only colour the rules allow.
Where it is
Barbera del Monferrato in Italy
- Latitude
- 44.5°–46.0° N
- Vineyard altitude
- 166 m to 349 m
- Production zone
- 309,725 ha
Lies within
Piemonte
Covers the same area as
Barbera del Monferrato Superiore, Monferrato
Contains 17 appellations (outlined on the zone map)
Albugnano, Barbera d'Asti, Brachetto d'Acqui, Calosso, Cortese dell'Alto Monferrato, Dolcetto d'Acqui, Dolcetto d'Asti, Gabiano, Grignolino d'Asti, Grignolino del Monferrato Casalese, Loazzolo, Malvasia di Casorzo d'Asti, Malvasia di Castelnuovo Don Bosco, Nizza, Rubino di Cantavenna, Ruchè di Castagnole Monferrato, Strevi
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 Barbera del Monferrato must meet.
Blend rules
Barbera del Monferrato
- ≥ 85% Barbera · Main grape
- ≤ 15% Freisa / Grignolino / Dolcetto · Allowed
Blend rules
Barbera del Monferrato (con Menzione Vigna)
- ≥ 85% Barbera · Main grape
- ≤ 15% Freisa / Grignolino / Dolcetto · Allowed
Blend rules
Barbera del Monferrato Frizzante
- ≥ 85% Barbera · Main grape
- ≤ 15% Freisa / Grignolino / Dolcetto · Allowed
Blend rules
Barbera del Monferrato Frizzante (con Menzione Vigna)
- ≥ 85% Barbera · Main grape
- ≤ 15% Freisa / Grignolino / Dolcetto · Allowed
In the vineyard and cellar: rules for every wine
3,500
Vines per hectare, minimum
650 m
Highest vineyard allowed
Training
Systems allowed
controspalliera con vegetazione assurgente (Guyot tradizionale, cordone speronato basso)
No forcing
Forcing the vines is prohibited
Permitted
Irrigation
Cellar
Where the wine must be made
Within the production zone
Allowed
Enrichment (chaptalisation)
02 · Climate fingerprint
The climate
The growing season averages 18.2 °C, warm on Gregory Jones's scale, with 1,759 growing degree days (Winkler III).
The average year 1991–2020, vineyards at about 224 m
Monthly mean, °CRain, mmGrowing season
- Growing-season temperature
- 18.2 °C
- Warm · 17–19 °C (Jones)
- Growing degree days
- 1,759
- Region III: 1,667–1,943 degree days
- Growing-season rain
- 690 mm
- Of 1,109 mm a year
- Harvest rain
- 229 mm
- September–October
Copernicus ERA5-Land monthly averages at 5 vineyard points (Vineyard point 1, 195 m; Vineyard point 2, 180 m; Vineyard point 3, 297 m; Vineyard point 4, 136 m; Vineyard point 5, 310 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 complex terrain (height corrections up to 4.9 °C); absolute values may be several degrees out, year-to-year changes are more reliable.
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. Soave SuperioreVery similarCompared with Barbera del Monferrato: same season warmth, similar rain.
2. ValtènesiVery similarCompared with Barbera del Monferrato: same season warmth, similar rain.
3. Grignolino d'AstiVery similarCompared with Barbera del Monferrato: 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, 229 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: Barbera del Monferrato · 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: Grape yield is written as 10000 kg/ha (10 t/ha) and wine output as 7.000 litres/ha (70 hl/ha); these are left null because the checker cannot match kg or litre figures. The specification says the 'vigna' mention is not provided for the frizzante, so that register entry is left empty; the frizzante may be asciutto or leggermente abboccato. Vinification and ageing may also take place anywhere in Piemonte; vigna vineyards under seven years old have lower yields.
- National tier (DOC/DOCG) not captured yet; rules extracted from the specification text.