What is made here
Wine colours
Colours the rules allow. Pick a colour to filter the rules and grapes below.
Where it is
Curtefranca in Italy
- Latitude
- 45.5°–45.7° N
- Vineyard altitude
- 144 m to 344 m
- Production zone
- 26,454 ha
Lies within
Franciacorta
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 Curtefranca must meet.
Blend rules
Curtefranca Bianco
- ≥ 50% Chardonnay · Main grape
- ≤ 50% Pinot bianco / Pinot nero · Allowed
; release from 1 February (after the harvest).
Blend rules
Curtefranca Bianco (con Menzione Vigna)
- ≥ 50% Chardonnay · Main grape
- ≤ 50% Pinot bianco / Pinot nero · Allowed
; release from 1 September of the year after the harvest.
Blend rules
Curtefranca Rosso
- ≥ 20% Cabernet franc / Carmenere · Main grape
- ≥ 25% Merlot · Main grape
- 10–35% Cabernet Sauvignon · Main grape
- ≤ 15% other non-aromatic red-berried varieties authorised in Lombardy · Others allowed
; release from 1 July of the year after the harvest.
Blend rules
Curtefranca Rosso (con Menzione Vigna)
- ≥ 20% Cabernet franc / Carmenere · Main grape
- ≥ 25% Merlot · Main grape
- 10–35% Cabernet Sauvignon · Main grape
- ≤ 15% other non-aromatic red-berried varieties authorised in Lombardy · Others allowed
; release from 1 September of the second 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.
60 varieties · Curtefranca Rosso, Curtefranca Rosso (con Menzione Vigna)
Ancellotta, Barbera, Bellagna, Bonarda, Cabernet Carbon, Cabernet Cortis, Cabernet Eidos, Cabernet Volos, Corvina, Croatina, Dolcetto, Erbanno, Fortana, Franconia, Freisa, Grappello Ruberti, Groppello Gentile, Groppello di Mocasina, Groppello di S. Stefano, Iasma Eco 1, Iasma Eco 2, Incrocio Terzi N.1, Julius, Lagrein, Lambrusco Grasparossa, Lambrusco Maestri, Lambrusco Marani, Lambrusco Salamino, Lambrusco Viadanese, Lambrusco di Sorbara, Maiolina, Marzemino, Merera, Merlot Kanthus, Meunier, Molinara, Montepulciano, Moradella, Mornasca, Moscato di Scanzo, Nebbiolo, Negrara, Petit Verdot, Pignola, Pinot Noir, Prior, Raboso Veronese, Rebo, Rondinella, Rossola Nera, Sangiovese, Schiava, Schiava Gentile, Schiava Grigia, Schiava Grossa, Serbina, Syrah, Teroldego, Uva Rara, Vespolina
In the vineyard and cellar: rules for every wine
4,500
Vines per hectare, minimum
Training
Systems allowed
spalliera singola (tralcio rinnovato o cordone speronato)
Emergency only
Irrigation
Cellar
Where the wine must be made
Within the production zone
02 · Climate fingerprint
The climate
The growing season averages 17.4 °C, warm on Gregory Jones's scale, with 1,595 growing degree days (Winkler II).
The average year 1991–2020, vineyards at about 214 m
Monthly mean, °CRain, mmGrowing season
- Growing-season temperature
- 17.4 °C
- Warm · 17–19 °C (Jones)
- Growing degree days
- 1,595
- Region II: 1,389–1,666 degree days
- Growing-season rain
- 752 mm
- Of 1,140 mm a year
- Harvest rain
- 237 mm
- September–October
Copernicus ERA5-Land monthly averages at 5 vineyard points (Vineyard point 1, 187 m; Vineyard point 2, 206 m; Vineyard point 3, 294 m; Vineyard point 4, 167 m; Vineyard point 5, 217 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. PornassioVery similarCompared with Curtefranca: same season warmth, similar rain.
2. Lago di CaldaroVery similarCompared with Curtefranca: same season warmth, similar rain.
3. Rubino di CantavennaVery similarCompared with Curtefranca: +0.3 °C in the growing season, 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, 237 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: Curtefranca · 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: Wood ageing is optional for Curtefranca bianco vigna. The release date for plain Curtefranca bianco (1 February) does not state the year. Terraced steep sites need only 2,500 vines/ha; bottling must take place in Brescia province.
- National tier (DOC/DOCG) not captured yet; rules extracted from the specification text.