What is made here
Wine colours
The only colour the rules allow.
Where it is
Oltrepò Pavese Pinot grigio in Italy
- Latitude
- 44.8°–45.1° N
- Vineyard altitude
- 131 m to 416 m
- Production zone
- 51,556 ha
Covers the same area as
Bonarda dell'Oltrepò Pavese, Oltrepò Pavese, Oltrepò Pavese metodo classico, Pinot nero dell'Oltrepò Pavese
Contains 3 appellations (outlined on the zone map)
Buttafuoco dell'Oltrepò Pavese, Casteggio, Sangue di Giuda
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 Oltrepò Pavese Pinot grigio must meet.
Blend rules
Oltrepò Pavese Pinot Grigio
- ≥ 85% Pinot Grigio · Main grape
- ≤ 15% Pinot nero and other non-aromatic white varieties authorised in Lombardy · Others allowed
Blend rules
Oltrepò Pavese Pinot Grigio Frizzante
- ≥ 85% Pinot Grigio · Main grape
- ≤ 15% Pinot nero and other non-aromatic white varieties authorised in Lombardy · Others allowed
Other varieties allowed
Besides the main grapes, the rules allow these varieties in some wines. Grape names link where a profile exists.
39 varieties · Oltrepò Pavese Pinot Grigio, Oltrepò Pavese Pinot Grigio Frizzante
Bronner, Bussanello, Cortese, Erbaluce, Erbamat, Fleurtai, Friulano, Garganega, Helios, Iasma Eco 3, Iasma Eco 4, Invernenga, Johanniter, Kerner, Malvasia Bianca di Candia, Malvasia di Candia Aromatica, Manzoni Bianco, Moscato Giallo, Muller Thurgau, Muscaris, Muscat Blanc A Petits Grains, Pinot Blanc, Riesling, Sauvignon Blanc, Sauvignon Kretos, Sauvignon Nepis, Sauvignon Rytos, Solaris, Soreli, Souvignier Gris, Timorasso, Trebbiano Giallo, Trebbiano Romagnolo, Trebbiano Toscano, Trebbiano di Soave, Veltliner, Verdea, Verdese, Welschriesling
In the vineyard and cellar: rules for every wine
4,000
Vines per hectare, minimum
Training
Systems allowed
controspalliera
Permitted
Irrigation
Cellar
Where the wine must be made
Within the production zone
02 · Climate fingerprint
The climate
The growing season averages 18.0 °C, warm on Gregory Jones's scale, with 1,709 growing degree days (Winkler III).
The average year 1991–2020, vineyards at about 258 m
Monthly mean, °CRain, mmGrowing season
- Growing-season temperature
- 18.0 °C
- Warm · 17–19 °C (Jones)
- Growing degree days
- 1,709
- Region III: 1,667–1,943 degree days
- Growing-season rain
- 539 mm
- Of 906 mm a year
- Harvest rain
- 186 mm
- September–October
Copernicus ERA5-Land monthly averages at 5 vineyard points (Vineyard point 1, 315 m; Vineyard point 2, 203 m; Vineyard point 3, 139 m; Vineyard point 4, 132 m; Vineyard point 5, 502 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. Dolcetto di OvadaVery similarCompared with Oltrepò Pavese Pinot grigio: same season warmth, similar rain.
2. Nebbiolo d'AlbaVery similarCompared with Oltrepò Pavese Pinot grigio: same season warmth, similar rain.
3. Verdicchio di Matelica RiservaVery similarCompared with Oltrepò Pavese Pinot grigio: 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, 186 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: Oltrepò Pavese Pinot grigio (version published by MASAF up to May 2023, via the Internet Archive; later amendments not yet included) · 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: Vinification is also allowed anywhere in the province of Pavia and in two hamlets of Ziano Piacentino. Unlike the other Oltrepò texts, valley floors and plains are not excluded ('senza comunque escludere').
- National tier (DOC/DOCG) not captured yet; rules extracted from the specification text.