What is made here
Wine colours
Colours the rules allow. Pick a colour to filter the rules and grapes below.
Where it is
Monti Lessini in Italy
- Latitude
- 45.4°–45.8° N
- Vineyard altitude
- 49 m to 475 m
- Production zone
- 57,052 ha
Lies within
Vigneti della Serenissima, delle Venezie
Covers the same area as
Lessini Durello
Contains 2 appellations (outlined on the zone map)
Gambellara, Recioto di Gambellara
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 Monti Lessini must meet.
Blend rules
Monti Lessini Pinot Nero
- ≥ 85% Pinot Noir · Main grape
- – other non-aromatic red varieties authorised for the provinces of Verona and Vicenza · Others allowed
Blend rules
Monti Lessini Durello Passito
- ≥ 85% Durella · Main grape
- ≤ 15% Garganega / Pinot bianco / Chardonnay / Pinot nero · Allowed
Blend rules
Monti Lessini Durello
- ≥ 85% Durella · Main grape
- ≤ 15% Garganega / Pinot bianco / Chardonnay / Pinot nero · Allowed
Blend rules
Monti Lessini Bianco
- ≥ 50% Chardonnay · Main grape
- – Durella / Garganega / Pinot bianco / Pinot nero / Pinot grigio / Sauvignon · Allowed
Blend rules
Monti Lessini Spumante
- ≥ 85% Durella · Main grape
- ≤ 15% Garganega / Pinot bianco / Chardonnay / Pinot nero · Allowed
Blend rules
Monti Lessini Spumante Riserva
- ≥ 85% Durella · Main grape
- ≤ 15% Garganega / Pinot bianco / Chardonnay / Pinot nero · Allowed
Blend rules
Monti Lessini Spumante Cremant
- ≥ 85% Durella · Main grape
- ≤ 15% Garganega / Pinot bianco / Chardonnay / Pinot nero · Allowed
Other varieties allowed
Besides the main grapes, the rules allow these varieties in some wines. Grape names link where a profile exists.
55 varieties · Monti Lessini Pinot Nero
Ancellotta, Barbera, Cabernet Carbon, Cabernet Cortis, Cabernet Eidos, Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Volos, Carmenere, Casetta, Cavrara, Ciliegiolo, Corbina, Corvina, Corvinone, Croatina, Dindarella, Forsellina, Freisa, Gamay, Gosen, Groppello Gentile, Gruaja, Iasma Eco 1, Iasma Eco 2, Julius, Lagrein, Lambrusco a Foglia Frastagliata, Marselan, Marzemina Grossa, Marzemino, Merlot, Merlot Kanthus, Merlot Khorus, Molinara, Negrara, Oseleta, Petit Verdot, Prior, Raboso Veronese, Rebo, Refosco dal Peduncolo Rosso, Regent, Rondinella, Rossignola, Sangiovese, Schiava Gentile, Schiava Grigia, Schiava Grossa, Sennen, Spigamonti, Syrah, Teroldego, Tocai Rosso, Turchetta
In the vineyard and cellar: rules for every wine
3,000
Vines per hectare, minimum
Training
Systems allowed
spalliera semplice; spalliera doppia; pergola veronese; pergoletta
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 18.1 °C, warm on Gregory Jones's scale, with 1,723 growing degree days (Winkler III).
The average year 1991–2020, vineyards at about 203 m
Monthly mean, °CRain, mmGrowing season
- Growing-season temperature
- 18.1 °C
- Warm · 17–19 °C (Jones)
- Growing degree days
- 1,723
- Region III: 1,667–1,943 degree days
- Growing-season rain
- 835 mm
- Of 1,269 mm a year
- Harvest rain
- 255 mm
- September–October
Copernicus ERA5-Land monthly averages at 5 vineyard points (Vineyard point 1, 211 m; Vineyard point 2, 157 m; Vineyard point 3, 461 m; Vineyard point 4, 155 m; Vineyard point 5, 32 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. Friuli AquileiaVery similarCompared with Monti Lessini: same season warmth, similar rain.
2. ProseccoVery similarCompared with Monti Lessini: same season warmth, similar rain.
3. FriuliVery similarCompared with Monti Lessini: 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, 255 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: Monti Lessini · 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 three spumante types are governed by the text but absent from the register list, so they are added. Durella and Garganega vineyards need only 2,500 vines/ha. Passito grapes are dried for at least 2 months; Durello may be asciutto to abboccato, passito amabile or dolce. Crémant uses whole-bunch hand-picked grapes, at most 100 l of must per 150 kg, and under 50 g/l sugar; its method is not stated explicitly.
- National tier (DOC/DOCG) not captured yet; rules extracted from the specification text.