What is made here
Wine colours
Colours the rules allow. Pick a colour to filter the rules and grapes below.
Where it is
Brachetto d'Acqui in Italy
- Latitude
- 44.6°–44.8° N
- Vineyard altitude
- 183 m to 464 m
- Production zone
- 35,149 ha
Lies within
Asti, Cortese dell'Alto Monferrato, Barbera d'Asti, Alta Langa, Barbera del Monferrato, Barbera del Monferrato Superiore, Monferrato, Piemonte
Contains 2 appellations (outlined on the zone map)
Loazzolo, 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.
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 Brachetto d'Acqui must meet.
Blend rules
Brachetto d’Acqui/Acqui
- ≥ 97% Brachetto · Main grape
- ≤ 3% other grapes authorised in Piedmont · Others allowed
Blend rules
Brachetto d’Acqui/Acqui Spumante
- ≥ 97% Brachetto · Main grape
- ≤ 3% other grapes authorised in Piedmont · Others allowed
Blend rules
Brachetto d’Acqui/Acqui Passito
- ≥ 97% Brachetto · Main grape
- ≤ 3% other grapes authorised in Piedmont · Others allowed
; release from 1 October of the 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.
69 varieties · Brachetto d’Acqui/Acqui, Brachetto d’Acqui/Acqui Spumante, Brachetto d’Acqui/Acqui Passito
Albarossa, Ancellotta, Arneis, Avana', Avarengo, Baratuciat, Barbera, Barbera Bianca, Becuet, Bonarda, Bragat Rosa, Bussanello, Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Chatus, Ciliegiolo, Cornarea, Cortese, Croatina, Dolcetto, Doux d'Henry, Durasa, Erbaluce, Favorita, Freisa, Gamay, Gamba Rossa, Gewürztraminer, Grignolino, Lambrusca di Alessandria, Malvasia Moscata, Malvasia Nera Lunga, Malvasia di Casorzo, Malvasia di Schierano, Manzoni Bianco, Merlot, Montanera, Moscato Nero di Acqui, Muller Thurgau, Muscat Blanc A Petits Grains, Nascetta, Nebbiolo, Ner d'Ala, Neretta Cuneese, Neretto di Bairo, Passau, Pelaverga, Pelaverga Piccolo, Petit Verdot, Pinot Blanc, Pinot Grigio, Pinot Noir, Plassa, Quagliano, Riesling, Rossese Bianco, Ruche', Sangiovese, Sauvignon Blanc, Slarina, Sylvaner, Syrah, Teroldego, Timorasso, Uva Rara, Uvalino, Vespolina, Viognier, Welschriesling
In the vineyard and cellar: rules for every wine
4,000
Vines per hectare, minimum
Training
Systems allowed
controspalliera
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 17.8 °C, warm on Gregory Jones's scale, with 1,672 growing degree days (Winkler III).
The average year 1991–2020, vineyards at about 273 m
Monthly mean, °CRain, mmGrowing season
- Growing-season temperature
- 17.8 °C
- Warm · 17–19 °C (Jones)
- Growing degree days
- 1,672
- Region III: 1,667–1,943 degree days
- Growing-season rain
- 615 mm
- Of 1,037 mm a year
- Harvest rain
- 225 mm
- September–October
Copernicus ERA5-Land monthly averages at 5 vineyard points (Vineyard point 1, 343 m; Vineyard point 2, 134 m; Vineyard point 3, 291 m; Vineyard point 4, 364 m; Vineyard point 5, 232 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. Côtes du VivaraisVery similarCompared with Brachetto d'Acqui: same season warmth, similar rain.
2. AlbugnanoVery similarCompared with Brachetto d'Acqui: same season warmth, similar rain.
3. Malvasia di Castelnuovo Don BoscoVery similarCompared with Brachetto d'Acqui: 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, 225 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: Brachetto d'Acqui · 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: Yield is 8,000 kg/ha (wine 5,600 litres/ha; Passito 3,600 litres/ha); the Region may raise it to 9.6 t/ha except for Passito. Passito grapes need 12% vol before and 15.5% vol after drying (on the vine or indoors). Brachetto ranges from secco to dolce and the Spumante from extra brut to dolce, made by tank or bottle fermentation with at least 1 month for the prise de mousse; winemaking is also allowed anywhere in Piedmont.
- National tier (DOC/DOCG) not captured yet; rules extracted from the specification text.