Barolo · Vinous

What is made here

Wine colours

The only colour the rules allow.

Where it is

Barolo in Italy

Latitude: 44.6°–44.7° N
Vineyard altitude: 246 m to 494 m
Production zone: 19,946 ha

Lies within
Dolcetto d'Alba, Barbera d'Alba, Alba, Langhe, Piemonte

Contains 2 appellations (outlined on the zone map)
Dolcetto di Diano d'Alba, 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 Barolo must meet.

7 wines in the rules.
Wine	Main grape(s)	Max yield t/ha	With named unit t/ha	Max wine hl/ha	Wine from grapes max. %	Grape ripeness min. % pot. alc.	Wine min. % alc.	Acidity min. g/l	Dry extract min. g/l	Ageing min. months	In wood min. months
Barolo	100% Nebbiolo	8	–	56	70	12.5	13	4.5	22	38	18
Barolo con Menzione Geografica	100% Nebbiolo	8	–	56	70	12.5	13	4.5	22	38	18
Barolo con Menzione Geografica e Menzione Vigna	100% Nebbiolo	7.2	7.2	–	70	13	13	4.5	22	38	18
Barolo Riserva	100% Nebbiolo	8	–	56	70	12.5	13	4.5	22	62	18
Barolo Riserva con Menzione Geografica	100% Nebbiolo	8	–	56	70	12.5	13	4.5	22	62	18
Barolo Riserva con Menzione Geografica e Menzione Vigna	100% Nebbiolo	7.2	7.2	–	70	13	13	4.5	22	62	18
Barolo Chinato	Nebbiolo	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–

From the official production rules (disciplinare di produzione). Hover a figure to see the clause it comes from. A dash means the rules set no figure, or it is not captured yet.

In the vineyard and cellar: rules for every wine

3,500

Vines per hectare, minimum

170–540 m

Vineyard altitude 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 17.4 °C, warm on Gregory Jones's scale, with 1,596 growing degree days (Winkler II).

The average year 1991–2020, vineyards at about 347 m

Monthly mean, °CRain, mmGrowing season

Growing-season temperature: 17.4 °C; Warm · 17–19 °C (Jones)
Growing degree days: 1,596; Region II: 1,389–1,666 degree days
Growing-season rain: 578 mm; Of 996 mm a year
Harvest rain: 198 mm; September–October

Copernicus ERA5-Land monthly averages at 5 vineyard points (Vineyard point 1, 355 m; Vineyard point 2, 297 m; Vineyard point 3, 281 m; Vineyard point 4, 491 m; Vineyard point 5, 312 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. MadiranVery similarCompared with Barolo: same season warmth, similar rain.

2. Pacherenc du Vic-BilhVery similarCompared with Barolo: same season warmth, similar rain.

3. Saint-MontVery similarCompared with Barolo: same season warmth, similar rain.

Growing-season temperature

Barolo

17.4 °C

Madiran

17.5 °C

Pacherenc du Vic-Bilh

17.5 °C

Saint-Mont

17.5 °C

Growing degree days

Barolo

1,596

Madiran

1,609

Pacherenc du Vic-Bilh

1,611

Saint-Mont

1,614

Growing-season rain

Barolo

578 mm

Madiran

582 mm

Pacherenc du Vic-Bilh

582 mm

Saint-Mont

573 mm

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, 198 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: Barolo · 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: Barolo Chinato is an aromatised wine made from Barolo flavoured with cinchona, with no further production rules in this text. With the Vigna mention, wine yield per hectare follows from the 7.2 t/ha grape yield (lower again for vines under seven years old); grape-to-wine yield falls to 68% (54.4 hl/ha) after the compulsory ageing. Vinification and ageing may be authorised in certain neighbouring communes.
National tier (DOC/DOCG) not captured yet; rules extracted from the specification text.