What is made here
Wine colours
Colours the rules allow. Pick a colour to filter the rules and grapes below.
Where it is
Castelli Romani in Italy
- Latitude
- 41.5°–42.1° N
- Vineyard altitude
- 51 m to 302 m
- Production zone
- 240,737 ha
Contains 9 appellations (outlined on the zone map)
Cannellino di Frascati, Colli Albani, Colli Lanuvini, Cori, Frascati, Frascati Superiore, Marino, Montecompatri Colonna, Velletri
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 Castelli Romani must meet.
Blend rules
Vino Bianco Secco
- – Malvasia (bianca di Candia, puntinata) / Trebbiano (toscano, di Soave, verde, giallo) · Main grape
- ≤ 30% other white grapes authorised in Lazio · Others allowed
Blend rules
Vino Bianco Amabile
- – Malvasia (bianca di Candia, puntinata) / Trebbiano (toscano, di Soave, verde, giallo) · Main grape
- ≤ 30% other white grapes authorised in Lazio · Others allowed
Blend rules
Vino Bianco Frizzante
- – Malvasia (bianca di Candia, puntinata) / Trebbiano (toscano, di Soave, verde, giallo) · Main grape
- ≤ 30% other white grapes authorised in Lazio · Others allowed
Blend rules
Vino Rosso Secco
- – Cesanese / Merlot / Montepulciano / Nero buono / Sangiovese · Main grape
- ≤ 15% other black grapes · Others allowed
Blend rules
Vino Rosso Amabile
- – Cesanese / Merlot / Montepulciano / Nero buono / Sangiovese · Main grape
- ≤ 15% other black grapes · Others allowed
Blend rules
Vino Rosso Frizzante
- – Cesanese / Merlot / Montepulciano / Nero buono / Sangiovese · Main grape
- ≤ 15% other black grapes · Others allowed
Blend rules
Castelli Romani rosso novello
- – Cesanese / Merlot / Montepulciano / Nero buono / Sangiovese · Main grape
- ≤ 15% other black grapes · Others allowed
Other varieties allowed
Besides the main grapes, the rules allow these varieties in some wines. Grape names link where a profile exists.
35 varieties · Vino Bianco Secco, Vino Bianco Amabile, Vino Bianco Frizzante
Bellone, Biancolella, Bombino Bianco, Canaiolo Bianco, Capolongo, Falanghina, Fiano, Forastera, Friulano, Grechetto, Greco, Greco Bianco, Guarnaccia, Malvasia Bianca Lunga, Manzoni Bianco, Maturano, Montonico Bianco, Moscato Giallo, Moscato di Terracina, Mostosa, Muscat Blanc A Petits Grains, Pampanaro, Passerina, Pecorino, Petit Manseng, Pinot Blanc, Riesling, Sauvignon Blanc, Semillon, Verdello, Verdicchio Bianco, Vermentino, Vernaccia di S. Giminiano, Viognier, Welschriesling
26 varieties · 7 wines
Abbuoto, Aglianico, Alicante, Ancellotta, Barbera, Bombino Nero, Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Calabrese, Canaiolo Nero, Carignan, Cesanese D Affile, Cesenese Nero, Ciliegiolo, Grechetto Rosso, Lambrusco Maestri, Lecinaro, Olivella Nera, Petit Verdot, Piedirosso, Pinot Noir, Primitivo, Sciascinoso, Syrah, Tannat, Tempranillo
In the vineyard and cellar: rules for every wine
1,100
Vines per hectare, minimum
Training
Systems allowed
Guyot; Cordone Speronato; Cortina pendente; CDG; Tendone; Cortina semplice
No forcing
Forcing the vines is prohibited
Permitted
Irrigation
Cellar
Where the wine must be made
Within the production zone
02 · Climate fingerprint
The climate
The growing season averages 19.6 °C, hot on Gregory Jones's scale, with 2,054 growing degree days (Winkler IV).
The average year 1991–2020, vineyards at about 161 m
Monthly mean, °CRain, mmGrowing season
- Growing-season temperature
- 19.6 °C
- Hot · 19–21 °C (Jones)
- Growing degree days
- 2,054
- Region IV: 1,944–2,221 degree days
- Growing-season rain
- 476 mm
- Of 990 mm a year
- Harvest rain
- 226 mm
- September–October
Copernicus ERA5-Land monthly averages at 5 vineyard points (Vineyard point 1, 211 m; Vineyard point 2, 217 m; Vineyard point 3, 61 m; Vineyard point 4, 252 m; Vineyard point 5, 64 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. Bianco CapenaVery similarCompared with Castelli Romani: same season warmth, similar rain.
2. Falerno del MassicoVery similarCompared with Castelli Romani: same season warmth, similar rain.
3. TarquiniaVery similarCompared with Castelli Romani: 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, 226 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: Castelli Romani · 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: Castelli Romani DOC (register names lack the denomination). Principal grapes are listed without percentages; rosato is a blend of white and black grapes or black grapes vinified as rosé, so its grape rules combine both lists. Sweetness for Secco/Amabile types is taken from the type name with the shared tasting clause; rosso novello is governed in the text but missing from the register list. Density and training rules apply to new plantings.
- National tier (DOC/DOCG) not captured yet; rules extracted from the specification text.