What is made here
Wine colours
The only colour the rules allow.
Where it is
Montecucco Sangiovese in Italy
- Latitude
- 42.7°–43.1° N
- Vineyard altitude
- 88 m to 408 m
- Production zone
- 85,189 ha
Lies within
Maremma toscana
Covers the same area as
Montecucco
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 Montecucco Sangiovese must meet.
Blend rules
Montecucco Sangiovese anche Riserva
- ≥ 90% Sangiovese · Main grape
- ≤ 10% other red varieties authorised in Tuscany (excluding Malvasia Nera, Malvasia Nera di Brindisi, Aleatico) · Others allowed
; release from 1 April of the second year after the harvest.
Blend rules
Montecucco Sangiovese Riserva
- ≥ 90% Sangiovese · Main grape
- ≤ 10% other red varieties authorised in Tuscany (excluding Malvasia Nera, Malvasia Nera di Brindisi, Aleatico) · Others allowed
At least 30 months' ageing; release from 1 September 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.
52 varieties · Montecucco Sangiovese anche Riserva, Montecucco Sangiovese Riserva
Alicante, Alicante Bouschet, Ancellotta, Barbera, Barsaglina, Bonamico, Bracciola Nera, Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Calabrese, Caloria, Canaiolo Nero, Canina Nera, Carignan, Carmenere, Cesanese D Affile, Ciliegiolo, Colombana Nera, Colorino, Foglia Tonda, Gamay, Gralima, Grand Noir, Gratena, Groppello Gentile, Groppello di S. Stefano, Lambrusco Maestri, Malbec, Malvasia Nera di Lecce, Mammolo, Mazzese, Merlese, Merlot, Mondeuse, Montepulciano, Moscato D Amburgo, Mourvèdre, Nocchianello Nero, Pinot Noir, Pollera Nera, Prugnolo Gentile, Pugnitello, Rebo, Refosco dal Peduncolo Rosso, Roussin, Sagrantino, Sanforte, Schiava Gentile, Syrah, Tempranillo, Teroldego, Vermentino Nero
In the vineyard and cellar: rules for every wine
3,300
Vines per hectare, minimum
No forcing
Forcing the vines is prohibited
Emergency only
Irrigation
Allowed
Enrichment (chaptalisation)
02 · Climate fingerprint
The climate
The growing season averages 19.0 °C, hot on Gregory Jones's scale, with 1,935 growing degree days (Winkler III).
The average year 1991–2020, vineyards at about 259 m
Monthly mean, °CRain, mmGrowing season
- Growing-season temperature
- 19.0 °C
- Hot · 19–21 °C (Jones)
- Growing degree days
- 1,935
- Region III: 1,667–1,943 degree days
- Growing-season rain
- 470 mm
- Of 880 mm a year
- Harvest rain
- 198 mm
- September–October
Copernicus ERA5-Land monthly averages at 5 vineyard points (Vineyard point 1, 326 m; Vineyard point 2, 84 m; Vineyard point 3, 152 m; Vineyard point 4, 419 m; Vineyard point 5, 314 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. Muscat de FrontignanVery similarCompared with Montecucco Sangiovese: same season warmth, similar rain.
2. Muscat de MirevalVery similarCompared with Montecucco Sangiovese: same season warmth, similar rain.
3. Torgiano Rosso RiservaVery similarCompared with Montecucco Sangiovese: 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, 198 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: Montecucco Sangiovese · 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: The register lists one name covering both types; the listed product carries the non-riserva rules and the Riserva is recorded separately. Winemaking must be in the province of Grosseto, or elsewhere in Tuscany for wineries vinifying their own Montecucco grapes.
- National tier (DOC/DOCG) not captured yet; rules extracted from the specification text.