What is made here
Wine colours
Colours the rules allow. Pick a colour to filter the rules and grapes below.
Where it is
Cinque Terre in Italy
- Latitude
- 44.1°–44.2° N
- Vineyard altitude
- 66 m to 418 m
- Production zone
- 8,499 ha
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 Cinque Terre must meet.
Blend rules
Cinque Terre
- ≥ 80% Bosco / Albarola / Vermentino bianco · Main grape
- ≤ 20% altri vitigni a bacca bianca idonei per la Regione Liguria · Others allowed
Blend rules
Cinque Terre Passito
- ≥ 80% Bosco / Albarola / Vermentino bianco · Main grape
- ≤ 20% altri vitigni a bacca bianca idonei per la Regione Liguria · Others allowed
Blend rules
Cinque Terre Riserva
- ≥ 80% Bosco / Albarola / Vermentino bianco · Main grape
- ≤ 20% altri vitigni a bacca bianca idonei per la Regione Liguria · Others allowed
Blend rules
Cinque Terre Costa de Sera
- ≥ 80% Bosco / Albarola / Vermentino bianco · Main grape
- ≤ 20% altri vitigni a bacca bianca idonei per la Regione Liguria · Others allowed
Blend rules
Cinque Terre Costa de Sera Passito
- ≥ 80% Bosco / Albarola / Vermentino bianco · Main grape
- ≤ 20% altri vitigni a bacca bianca idonei per la Regione Liguria · Others allowed
Blend rules
Cinque Terre Costa de Sera Riserva
- ≥ 80% Bosco / Albarola / Vermentino bianco · Main grape
- ≤ 20% altri vitigni a bacca bianca idonei per la Regione Liguria · Others allowed
Blend rules
Cinque Terre Costa de Campu
- ≥ 80% Bosco / Albarola / Vermentino bianco · Main grape
- ≤ 20% altri vitigni a bacca bianca idonei per la Regione Liguria · Others allowed
Blend rules
Cinque Terre Costa de Campu Passito
- ≥ 80% Bosco / Albarola / Vermentino bianco · Main grape
- ≤ 20% altri vitigni a bacca bianca idonei per la Regione Liguria · Others allowed
Blend rules
Cinque Terre Costa de Campu Riserva
- ≥ 80% Bosco / Albarola / Vermentino bianco · Main grape
- ≤ 20% altri vitigni a bacca bianca idonei per la Regione Liguria · Others allowed
Blend rules
Cinque Terre Costa de Posa
- ≥ 80% Bosco / Albarola / Vermentino bianco · Main grape
- ≤ 20% altri vitigni a bacca bianca idonei per la Regione Liguria · Others allowed
Blend rules
Cinque Terre Costa de Posa Passito
- ≥ 80% Bosco / Albarola / Vermentino bianco · Main grape
- ≤ 20% altri vitigni a bacca bianca idonei per la Regione Liguria · Others allowed
Blend rules
Cinque Terre Costa de Posa Riserva
- ≥ 80% Bosco / Albarola / Vermentino bianco · Main grape
- ≤ 20% altri vitigni a bacca bianca idonei per la Regione Liguria · Others allowed
Blend rules
Cinque Terre Sciacchetrà
- ≥ 80% Bosco / Albarola / Vermentino bianco · Main grape
- ≤ 20% altri vitigni a bacca bianca idonei per la Regione Liguria · Others allowed
; release from 1 October of the year after the harvest.
Blend rules
Cinque Terre Sciacchetrà Passito
- ≥ 80% Bosco / Albarola / Vermentino bianco · Main grape
- ≤ 20% altri vitigni a bacca bianca idonei per la Regione Liguria · Others allowed
; release from 1 October of the year after the harvest.
Blend rules
Cinque Terre Sciacchetrà Riserva
- ≥ 80% Bosco / Albarola / Vermentino bianco · Main grape
- ≤ 20% altri vitigni a bacca bianca idonei per la Regione Liguria · Others allowed
; release from 1 October of the third 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.
28 varieties · 15 wines
Albana, Albarossa, Alicante, Barbera, Barsaglina, Bianchetta Genovese, Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Canaiolo Nero, Ciliegiolo, Dolcetto, Greco, Lumassina, Malvasia Bianca Lunga, Merlot, Muscat Blanc A Petits Grains, Pigato, Pollera Nera, Rollo, Rossese, Rossese Bianco, Ruzzese, Sangiovese, Sauvignon Blanc, Scimiscià, Syrah, Trebbiano Toscano, Vermentino Nero
In the vineyard and cellar: rules for every wine
4,000
Vines per hectare, minimum
No forcing
Forcing the vines is prohibited
Emergency only
Irrigation
Cellar
Where the wine must be made
Within the production zone
02 · Climate fingerprint
The climate
The growing season averages 17.8 °C, warm on Gregory Jones's scale, with 1,667 growing degree days (Winkler III).
The average year 1991–2020, vineyards at about 259 m
Monthly mean, °CRain, mmGrowing season
- Growing-season temperature
- 17.8 °C
- Warm · 17–19 °C (Jones)
- Growing degree days
- 1,667
- Region III: 1,667–1,943 degree days
- Growing-season rain
- 701 mm
- Of 1,397 mm a year
- Harvest rain
- 328 mm
- September–October
Copernicus ERA5-Land monthly averages at 5 vineyard points (Vineyard point 1, 332 m; Vineyard point 2, 241 m; Vineyard point 3, 238 m; Vineyard point 4, 416 m; Vineyard point 5, 66 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 2.2 °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. PortofinoVery similarCompared with Cinque Terre: same season warmth, similar rain.
2. SoaveVery similarCompared with Cinque Terre: same season warmth, similar rain.
3. Malvasia di Casorzo d'AstiVery similarCompared with Cinque Terre: 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, 328 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: Cinque Terre · Ministero dell'agricoltura, della sovranità alimentare e delle foreste (MASAF) · Official act
- Climate profiles calculated by Vinous: method
Still to check (3)
- Generated from EU reference data: check against the current product specification.
- From the specification: Art. 1 allows Passito and Riserva types for Cinque Terre and its sub-zones but the text sets no separate rules for them, so those products carry only the grape rules; the Sciacchetrà rules are repeated for 'Sciacchetrà Passito'. The Costa de Campu yield is printed '8;5' (8.5 t/ha like the other sub-zones) so it is left null. Sciacchetrà grapes are partly dried after harvest to reach at least 19% vol natural alcohol, may not be vinified before 1 October, and drying and ageing must take place in the zone. The text spells the sub-zone 'Costa da Posa'. Density 4,000/ha applies to new plantings.
- National tier (DOC/DOCG) not captured yet; rules extracted from the specification text.