What is made here
Wine colours
The only colour the rules allow.
Where it is
Chianti Classico in Italy
Wooded hills between Florence and Siena; forest covers much of the zone.
- Latitude
- 43.3°–43.7° N
- Vineyard altitude
- up to 700 m
- Production zone
- 71,800 ha
- Shelter
- Monti del Chianti ridge on the eastern side
Lies within
Colli dell'Etruria Centrale
Covers the same area as
Vin Santo del Chianti Classico
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 Chianti Classico must meet.
Blend rules
Chianti Classico
- 80–100% Sangiovese · Main grape
- ≤ 20% Other red varieties suited to Tuscany (national register list) · Others allowed
- 0% White varieties · Not allowed
; release from 1 October of the year after harvest.
Blend rules
Chianti Classico Riserva
- 80–100% Sangiovese · Main grape
- ≤ 20% Other red varieties suited to Tuscany · Others allowed
At least 24 months' ageing.
Blend rules
Chianti Classico Gran Selezione
- 90–100% Sangiovese · Main grape
- ≤ 10% Native reds only: Colorino, Canaiolo, Ciliegiolo, Mammolo, Pugnitello, Malvasia Nera, Foglia Tonda, Sanforte · Others allowed
At least 30 months' ageing.
In the vineyard and cellar: rules for every wine
4,400
Vines per hectare, minimum
700 m
Highest vineyard allowed
Hillside sites only, not above 700 m.
No forcing
Forcing the vines is prohibited
Emergency only
Irrigation
Terrain
Hill slopes, appropriately oriented
Excluded: Damp soils, valley floors, markedly clayey Pliocene terrain
Banned
Training systems
horizontal canopy systems such as tendone
Young vines
Production from the 3rd leaf at 40% of the normal limit (3 t/ha)
Cellar
Where the wine must be made
Within the production zone
Allowed
Enrichment (chaptalisation)
02 · Climate fingerprint
The climate
The growing season averages 18.8 °C, warm on Gregory Jones's scale, with 1,894 growing degree days (Winkler III). Good vintages 1980–2011 were linked to more spring and summer heat and less rain at veraison (Salinger et al. 2015).
The average year 1991–2020, vineyards at about 397 m
Daily low to high, °CRain, mmGrowing season
- Growing-season temperature
- 18.8 °C
- Warm · 17–19 °C (Jones)
- Growing degree days
- 1,894
- Region III: 1,667–1,943 degree days
- Huglin index
- 2,325
- Warm temperate
- September nights
- 13.5 °C
- Cool nights
- Day–night range at ripening
- 11.0 °C
- Mean daily max minus min
- Growing-season rain
- 445 mm
- Of 820 mm a year
- Harvest rain
- 185 mm
- September–October
- Days over 30 °C
- 41
- 4 over 35 °C
Copernicus ERA5-Land reanalysis at 7 vineyard points (Greve, 350 m; Panzano, 450 m; Radda, 500 m; Castellina, 450 m; Gaiole, 400 m; Castelnuovo Berardenga, 350 m; San Casciano, 280 m), anchored to the Siena station's 1991–2020 averages (climieviaggi.it) and adjusted for height. 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. Bianchello del MetauroVery similarCompared with Chianti Classico: same season warmth, similar rain, cooler ripening nights.
2. TodiVery similarCompared with Chianti Classico: same season warmth, similar rain, cooler ripening nights.
3. Muscat de Beaumes-de-VeniseVery similarCompared with Chianti Classico: same season warmth, similar rain, cooler ripening nights.
Growing-season temperature
Growing degree days
Growing-season rain
Ripening-month nights
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, 185 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 · Under the vines
Soils
Galestro
Flaky calcareous clay shale (schist)
Mid-elevation slopes across the zone
- Texture
- Friable, stony
- Drainage
- good
- Lime
- calcareous
The soil most associated with the region
Alberese
Hard, calcium-rich limestone
Higher central and southern slopes
- Texture
- Stony
- Drainage
- good
- Lime
- calcareous
Structure and acidity
Macigno
Hard non-calcareous sandstone
Monti del Chianti ridge, e.g. Lamole
- Texture
- Sandy
- Drainage
- very good
- Lime
- not calcareous
Elegance and floral character
Pietraforte
Calcareous sandstone
North-central zone, notably Panzano
- Texture
- Sandy
- Lime
- calcareous
Finer, more aromatic wines
Sillano marl
Clayey marl
Western parts of the zone
- Texture
- Clay-rich
- Drainage
- moderate
- Lime
- calcareous
Fuller, darker-fruited wines
Alluvial deposits
River gravels and sands
San Casciano and parts of the western edge
- Texture
- Deep, stony
Fuller, meatier wines
The science, honestly: how much soil shapes the wine is debated. Shares of each soil type are rarely published; measured soil data (SoilGrids) is planned for every vineyard point.
05 · Inside the zone
Character by area
LamoleHighest vines; pale, floral wines
RaddaCool, fresh; late harvests
PanzanoWarm west-facing bowl (Conca d'Oro); depth and structure
Castelnuovo BerardengaSouthernmost and warmest; powerful, firm wines
San CascianoLow hills, alluvial soils; softer, red-fruited wines
06 · Where the numbers come from
Sources
- Production Code of Chianti Classico DOCG (2023) · Consorzio Vino Chianti Classico
- Chianti Classico region page · Berry Bros & Rudd
- Denominazione di origine controllata · Wikipedia · CC BY-SA
- geojson-italy (ISTAT boundaries) · openpolis · CC BY 4.0
- Clima di Siena, 1991-2020 normals · climieviaggi.it
- Viticultural indices calculated for Wine Epic · Wine Epic
- Chianti Classico terroir guide · Wine Folly
- Chianti Classico: the Unità Geografiche Aggiuntive · Decanter
- Seasonal differences in climate in the Chianti region of Tuscany and the relationship to vintage wine quality · International Journal of Biometeorology 59:1799–1811
- A geospatial inventory of regulatory information for wine protected designations of origin in Europe (Candiago et al., Scientific Data 2022) · Eurac Research, via figshare · CC0
- ERA5-Land hourly time series (reanalysis-era5-land-timeseries) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), Climate Data Store · CC BY 4.0 (Copernicus licence)
- Disciplinare di produzione: Chianti Classico · Ministero dell'agricoltura, della sovranità alimentare e delle foreste (MASAF) · Official act
- Climate profiles calculated by Vinous: method
Still to check (5)
- Planted vineyard area and production volume (Consorzio annual report)
- Legal boundary: Eurac PDO inventory row PDO-IT-A1235 (Chianti Classico) lists the 77 Chianti DOCG communes (~733,000 ha), not the Classico zone. Boundary taken from PDO-IT-A1514 (Vin Santo del Chianti Classico, 8 communes) instead; it is a whole-commune union (95,679 ha), so it overstates the 71,800 ha delimited zone (Barberino Tavarnelle, Castelnuovo Berardenga, Poggibonsi and San Casciano are only partly inside). Need the 1932 decree line as GeoJSON.
- Daily station or ERA5 data for per-vintage indices
- Gridded soil summary from SoilGrids
- ERA5-Land normals disagree with station normals (see docs/climate-validation.md); Chianti profile GDD 1684 vs Siena station 1991; partly height/urban, partly reanalysis smoothing.