What is made here
Wine colours
Colours the rules allow. Pick a colour to filter the rules and grapes below.
Where it is
Montefalco in Italy
- Latitude
- 42.8°–43.0° N
- Vineyard altitude
- 209 m to 397 m
- Production zone
- 28,890 ha
Lies within
Colli Martani
Covers the same area as
Montefalco Sagrantino
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 Montefalco must meet.
Blend rules
Montefalco Rosso
- 60–80% Sangiovese · Main grape
- 10–25% Sagrantino · Allowed
At least 18 months' ageing; release from 1 May of the second year after the harvest.
Blend rules
Montefalco rosso riserva
- 60–80% Sangiovese · Main grape
- 10–25% Sagrantino · Allowed
At least 30 months' ageing; release from 1 May 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.
36 varieties · Montefalco Bianco, Montefalco Grechetto
Albana, Bellone, Biancame, Bombino Bianco, Canaiolo Bianco, Falanghina, Fiano, Friulano, Garganega, Greco, Greco Bianco, Incrocio Bruni 54, Maceratino, Malvasia Bianca Lunga, Malvasia Bianca di Candia, Malvasia del Lazio, Manzoni Bianco, Montonico Bianco, Mostosa, Muller Thurgau, Muscat Blanc A Petits Grains, Passerina, Pecorino, Pinot Blanc, Riesling, Sauvignon Blanc, Semillon, Sylvaner, Trebbiano Giallo, Trebbiano Spoletino, Verdello, Verdicchio Bianco, Vermentino, Vernaccia di S. Giminiano, Viognier, Welschriesling
37 varieties · Montefalco Rosso, Montefalco rosso riserva
Aglianico, Alicante, Barbera, Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Calabrese, Canaiolo Nero, Carignan, Cesanese Comune, Cesanese D Affile, Ciliegiolo, Colorino, Dolcetto, Foglia Tonda, Gaglioppo, Gamay, Grechetto Rosso, Grero, Lacrima, Maiolica, Malbec, Malvasia, Mammolo, Marselan, Merlot, Montepulciano, Nebbiolo, Petit Verdot, Pinot Noir, Primitivo, Prugnolo Gentile, Rebo, Refosco dal Peduncolo Rosso, Syrah, Tannat, Teroldego, Vernaccia Nera
In the vineyard and cellar: rules for every wine
3,000
Vines per hectare, minimum
No forcing
Forcing the vines is prohibited
Cellar
Where the wine must be made
Within the production zone
02 · Climate fingerprint
The climate
The growing season averages 18.3 °C, warm on Gregory Jones's scale, with 1,785 growing degree days (Winkler III).
The average year 1991–2020, vineyards at about 337 m
Monthly mean, °CRain, mmGrowing season
- Growing-season temperature
- 18.3 °C
- Warm · 17–19 °C (Jones)
- Growing degree days
- 1,785
- Region III: 1,667–1,943 degree days
- Growing-season rain
- 438 mm
- Of 835 mm a year
- Harvest rain
- 161 mm
- September–October
Copernicus ERA5-Land monthly averages at 5 vineyard points (Vineyard point 1, 356 m; Vineyard point 2, 250 m; Vineyard point 3, 223 m; Vineyard point 4, 484 m; Vineyard point 5, 372 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. ЛясковецVery similarCompared with Montefalco: same season warmth, similar rain.
2. Нова ЗагораVery similarCompared with Montefalco: same season warmth, similar rain.
3. ВрацаVery similarCompared with Montefalco: 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, 161 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: Montefalco · 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: Grechetto and Rosso riserva are governed separately but missing from the register list, so they are added. Minimum density is 4,000 vines/ha for red types and 3,000 for white (3,000 recorded). For Bianco, Art. 6 gives 11% as 'naturale' rather than total, so total alcohol is left null. Other varieties may complete the blends without a stated maximum.
- National tier (DOC/DOCG) not captured yet; rules extracted from the specification text.