What is made here
Wine colours
Colours the rules allow. Pick a colour to filter the rules and grapes below.
Where it is
Ortona in Italy
- Latitude
- 42.3°–42.4° N
- Vineyard altitude
- 36 m to 165 m
- Production zone
- 7,038 ha
Lies within
Cerasuolo d'Abruzzo, Montepulciano d’Abruzzo, Trebbiano d'Abruzzo, Abruzzo
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 Ortona must meet.
Blend rules
Ortona Bianco
- ≥ 70% Trebbiano Abruzzese / Trebbiano Toscano · Main grape
- ≤ 30% other non-aromatic white grapes authorised in Abruzzo · Others allowed
; release from 1 January after the harvest.
Blend rules
Ortona Rosso
- ≥ 95% Montepulciano · Main grape
- ≤ 5% other non-aromatic red grapes authorised in Abruzzo · Others allowed
; release from 1 March 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.
35 varieties · Ortona Bianco
Barbera Bianca, Biancame, Bombino Bianco, Cococciola, Falanghina, Fiano, Friulano, Garganega, Grechetto, Greco, Incrocio Bianco Fedit 51 C.S.G., Kerner, Malvasia Bianca Lunga, Malvasia Bianca di Candia, Malvasia Istriana, Malvasia del Lazio, Manzoni Bianco, Montonico Bianco, Mostosa, Muscat Blanc A Petits Grains, Passerina, Pecorino, Petit Manseng, Pinot Blanc, Regina, Regina dei Vigneti, Riesling, Sauvignon Blanc, Semillon, Sylvaner, Veltliner, Verdicchio Bianco, Vermentino, Viognier, Welschriesling
23 varieties · Ortona Rosso
Aglianico, Barbera, Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Calabrese, Canaiolo Nero, Ciliegiolo, Dolcetto, Gaglioppo, Grenache, Maiolica, Malbec, Marzemino, Merlot, Nebbiolo, Petit Verdot, Pinot Noir, Primitivo, Refosco Nostrano, Sangiovese, Syrah, Tannat, Terrano
In the vineyard and cellar: rules for every wine
2,500
Vines per hectare, minimum
Training
Systems allowed
pergola abruzzese (traditional); cordone speronato; guyot
No forcing
Forcing the vines is prohibited
Permitted
Irrigation
Cellar
Where the wine must be made
Within the production zone
Allowed
Enrichment (chaptalisation)
02 · Climate fingerprint
The climate
The growing season averages 19.4 °C, hot on Gregory Jones's scale, with 2,016 growing degree days (Winkler IV).
The average year 1991–2020, vineyards at about 116 m
Monthly mean, °CRain, mmGrowing season
- Growing-season temperature
- 19.4 °C
- Hot · 19–21 °C (Jones)
- Growing degree days
- 2,016
- Region IV: 1,944–2,221 degree days
- Growing-season rain
- 396 mm
- Of 768 mm a year
- Harvest rain
- 135 mm
- September–October
Copernicus ERA5-Land monthly averages at 5 vineyard points (Vineyard point 1, 117 m; Vineyard point 2, 167 m; Vineyard point 3, 73 m; Vineyard point 4, 56 m; Vineyard point 5, 167 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. Terre di CosenzaVery similarCompared with Ortona: same season warmth, similar rain.
2. BifernoVery similarCompared with Ortona: same season warmth, similar rain.
3. PicoVery similarCompared with Ortona: 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, 135 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: Ortona (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: Minimum density for new plantings is 2,500 vines/ha, or 1,600 for the traditional pergola abruzzese. Bottling must take place in the zone.
- National tier (DOC/DOCG) not captured yet; rules extracted from the specification text.