What is made here
Wine colours
The only colour the rules allow.
Where it is
Monica di Sardegna in Italy
- Latitude
- 38.9°–41.3° N
- Vineyard altitude
- 5 m to 506 m
- Production zone
- 2,410,623 ha
Covers the same area as
Moscato di Sardegna, Sardegna Semidano, Vermentino di Sardegna
Contains 14 appellations (outlined on the zone map)
Alghero, Arborea, Cagliari, Campidano di Terralba, Cannonau di Sardegna, Carignano del Sulcis, Girò di Cagliari, Malvasia di Bosa, Mandrolisai, Moscato di Sorso, Nasco di Cagliari, Nuragus di Cagliari, Vermentino di Gallura, Vernaccia di Oristano
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 Monica di Sardegna must meet.
Blend rules
Monica di Sardegna
- ≥ 85% Monica · Main grape
- ≤ 15% other non-aromatic black grapes authorised in Sardegna · Others allowed
; release from 31 March after the harvest year.
Blend rules
Monica di Sardegna Superiore
- ≥ 85% Monica · Main grape
- ≤ 15% other non-aromatic black grapes authorised in Sardegna · Others allowed
; release from 1 September of the year after the harvest.
Blend rules
Monica di Sardegna Frizzante
- ≥ 85% Monica · Main grape
- ≤ 15% other non-aromatic black grapes authorised in Sardegna · Others allowed
; release from 31 March after the harvest year.
Other varieties allowed
Besides the main grapes, the rules allow these varieties in some wines. Grape names link where a profile exists.
47 varieties · Monica di Sardegna, Monica di Sardegna Superiore, Monica di Sardegna Frizzante
Aglianico, Albaranzeuli Nero, Alicante, Alicante Bouschet, Ancellotta, Barbera, Barbera Sarda, Bombino Nero, Bovale, Bovale Grande, Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Caddiu, Cagnulari, Calabrese, Canaiolo Nero, Caricagiola, Carignan, Croatina, Dolcetto, Fiudedda, Gaglioppo, Girò, Gregu Nieddu, Grenache, Malbec, Malvasia, Marzemino, Medrulinu, Merlot, Montepulciano, Nebbiolo, Nera del Ponte, Niedda Carta, Nieddera, Nieddu Mannu, Nigheddu Polchinu, Pascale, Pinot Noir, Primitivo, Procu Nieddu, Refosco dal Peduncolo Rosso, Saluda e Passa, Sangiovese, Syrah, Teroldego, Tocai Rosso
In the vineyard and cellar: rules for every wine
750 m
Highest vineyard allowed
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 20.8 °C, hot on Gregory Jones's scale, with 2,307 growing degree days (Winkler V).
The average year 1991–2020, vineyards at about 140 m
Monthly mean, °CRain, mmGrowing season
- Growing-season temperature
- 20.8 °C
- Hot · 19–21 °C (Jones)
- Growing degree days
- 2,307
- Region V: 2,222 and over degree days
- Growing-season rain
- 228 mm
- Of 517 mm a year
- Harvest rain
- 94 mm
- September–October
Copernicus ERA5-Land monthly averages at 5 vineyard points (Vineyard point 1, 540 m; Vineyard point 2, 57 m; Vineyard point 3, 47 m; Vineyard point 4, 31 m; Vineyard point 5, 24 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 moderately complex terrain; not yet checked against a weather station.
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. CagliariVery similarCompared with Monica di Sardegna: same season warmth, similar rain.
2. ArboreaVery similarCompared with Monica di Sardegna: same season warmth, wetter (+26 mm).
3. MálagaVery similarCompared with Monica di Sardegna: 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, 94 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: Monica di Sardegna · 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: Monica di Sardegna and the frizzante may be dry or amabile ('secco oppure amabile'), so sweetness is left null; amabile wines must say so on the label.
- National tier (DOC/DOCG) not captured yet; rules extracted from the specification text.