What is made here
Wine colours
Colours the rules allow. Pick a colour to filter the rules and grapes below.
Where it is
Melissa in Italy
- Latitude
- 39.0°–39.4° N
- Vineyard altitude
- 12 m to 100 m
- Production zone
- 78,814 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 Melissa must meet.
Blend rules
Melissa Rosso
- 75–95% Gaglioppo · Main grape
- 5–25% Greco nero / Greco bianco / Trebbiano toscano / Malvasia bianca · Allowed
Blend rules
Melissa Bianco
- 80–95% Greco bianco · Main grape
- 5–20% Trebbiano toscano / Malvasia bianca · Allowed
Blend rules
Melissa Rosso Superiore
- 75–95% Gaglioppo · Main grape
- 5–25% Greco nero / Greco bianco / Trebbiano toscano / Malvasia bianca · Allowed
At least 24 months' ageing.
In the vineyard and cellar: rules for every wine
No forcing
Forcing the vines is prohibited
Prohibited
Irrigation
02 · Climate fingerprint
The climate
The growing season averages 21.2 °C, very hot on Gregory Jones's scale, with 2,399 growing degree days (Winkler V).
The average year 1991–2020, vineyards at about 25 m
Monthly mean, °CRain, mmGrowing season
- Growing-season temperature
- 21.2 °C
- Very hot · above 21 °C (Jones)
- Growing degree days
- 2,399
- Region V: 2,222 and over degree days
- Growing-season rain
- 359 mm
- Of 820 mm a year
- Harvest rain
- 187 mm
- September–October
Copernicus ERA5-Land monthly averages at 5 vineyard points (Vineyard point 1, 44 m; Vineyard point 2, 22 m; Vineyard point 3, 45 m; Vineyard point 4, 8 m; Vineyard point 5, 7 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. OstuniVery similarCompared with Melissa: same season warmth, drier (−48 mm).
2. MamertinoVery similarCompared with Melissa: same season warmth, wetter (+45 mm).
3. Μοσχάτος Ρίου ΠάτραςVery similarCompared with Melissa: same season warmth, drier (−48 mm).
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, 187 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: Melissa · 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: Winemaking may take place in the zone's communes and in the neighbouring communes of Cirò, Cirò Marina and Crucoli; the text does not strictly require it in the zone, so that field is null. Poorly exposed and damp vineyards are excluded.
- National tier (DOC/DOCG) not captured yet; rules extracted from the specification text.