What is made here
Wine colours
The only colour the rules allow.
Where it is
Rosso Piceno in Italy
- Latitude
- 42.8°–43.8° N
- Vineyard altitude
- 53 m to 383 m
- Production zone
- 445,336 ha
Contains 11 appellations (outlined on the zone map)
Castelli di Jesi Verdicchio Riserva, Cònero, I Terreni di Sanseverino, Lacrima di Morro, Offida, Rosso Cònero, San Ginesio, Serrapetrona, Terre di Offida, Verdicchio dei Castelli di Jesi, Vernaccia di Serrapetrona
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 Rosso Piceno must meet.
Blend rules
Rosso Piceno/Piceno
- 35–85% Montepulciano · Main grape
- 15–50% Sangiovese · Main grape
- ≤ 15% other non-aromatic red grapes suitable for the Marche · Others allowed
Blend rules
Rosso Piceno/Piceno Superiore
- 35–85% Montepulciano · Main grape
- 15–50% Sangiovese · Main grape
- ≤ 15% other non-aromatic red grapes suitable for the Marche · Others allowed
; release from 1 November of the year after the harvest.
Blend rules
Rosso Piceno/Piceno Sangiovese
- ≥ 85% Sangiovese · Main grape
- ≤ 15% other non-aromatic red grapes suitable for the Marche · Others allowed
Blend rules
Rosso Piceno/Piceno Novello
- 35–85% Montepulciano · Main grape
- 15–50% Sangiovese · Main grape
- ≤ 15% other non-aromatic red grapes suitable for the Marche · Others allowed
Other varieties allowed
Besides the main grapes, the rules allow these varieties in some wines. Grape names link where a profile exists.
25 varieties · Rosso Piceno/Piceno, Rosso Piceno/Piceno Superiore, Rosso Piceno/Piceno Novello
Alicante, Ancellotta, Barbera, Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Canaiolo Nero, Carignan, Ciliegiolo, Colorino, Foglia Tonda, Gaglioppo, Lacrima, Maiolica, Malbo Gentile, Merlot, Petit Verdot, Pinot Noir, Rebo, Refosco dal Peduncolo Rosso, Sagrantino, Syrah, Teroldego, Terrano, Vernaccia Nera, Vernaccia Nera Grossa
26 varieties · Rosso Piceno/Piceno Sangiovese
Alicante, Ancellotta, Barbera, Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Canaiolo Nero, Carignan, Ciliegiolo, Colorino, Foglia Tonda, Gaglioppo, Lacrima, Maiolica, Malbo Gentile, Merlot, Petit Verdot, Pinot Noir, Rebo, Refosco dal Peduncolo Rosso, Sagrantino, Sangiovese, Syrah, Teroldego, Terrano, Vernaccia Nera, Vernaccia Nera Grossa
In the vineyard and cellar: rules for every wine
2,200
Vines per hectare, minimum
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 19.0 °C, hot on Gregory Jones's scale, with 1,929 growing degree days (Winkler III).
The average year 1991–2020, vineyards at about 189 m
Monthly mean, °CRain, mmGrowing season
- Growing-season temperature
- 19.0 °C
- Hot · 19–21 °C (Jones)
- Growing degree days
- 1,929
- Region III: 1,667–1,943 degree days
- Growing-season rain
- 429 mm
- Of 782 mm a year
- Harvest rain
- 138 mm
- September–October
Copernicus ERA5-Land monthly averages at 5 vineyard points (Vineyard point 1, 188 m; Vineyard point 2, 276 m; Vineyard point 3, 83 m; Vineyard point 4, 2 m; Vineyard point 5, 395 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. EtnaVery similarCompared with Rosso Piceno: same season warmth, similar rain.
2. Muscat de RivesaltesVery similarCompared with Rosso Piceno: same season warmth, similar rain.
3. Monteregio di Massa MarittimaVery similarCompared with Rosso Piceno: 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, 138 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: Rosso Piceno (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 provinces of Ancona, Ascoli Piceno, Fermo and Macerata. New vineyards may not use the tendone system; valley floors are excluded; sweetening is permitted.
- National tier (DOC/DOCG) not captured yet; rules extracted from the specification text.