What is made here
Wine colours
The only colour the rules allow.
Where it is
Sforzato di Valtellina in Italy
- Latitude
- 46.0°–46.3° N
- Vineyard altitude
- 413 m to 729 m
- Production zone
- 24,728 ha
Lies within
Valtellina rosso
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 Sforzato di Valtellina must meet.
Blend rules
Sforzato di Valtellina/Sfursat di Vatellina
- ≥ 90% Nebbiolo (Chiavennasca) · Main grape
- ≤ 10% other non-aromatic red varieties authorised in Lombardy · Others allowed
At least 20 months' ageing.
Other varieties allowed
Besides the main grapes, the rules allow these varieties in some wines. Grape names link where a profile exists.
63 varieties · Sforzato di Valtellina/Sfursat di Vatellina
Ancellotta, Barbera, Bellagna, Bonarda, Cabernet Carbon, Cabernet Cortis, Cabernet Eidos, Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Volos, Carmenere, Corvina, Croatina, Dolcetto, Erbanno, Fortana, Franconia, Freisa, Grappello Ruberti, Groppello Gentile, Groppello di Mocasina, Groppello di S. Stefano, Iasma Eco 1, Iasma Eco 2, Incrocio Terzi N.1, Julius, Lagrein, Lambrusco Grasparossa, Lambrusco Maestri, Lambrusco Marani, Lambrusco Salamino, Lambrusco Viadanese, Lambrusco di Sorbara, Maiolina, Marzemino, Merera, Merlot, Merlot Kanthus, Meunier, Molinara, Montepulciano, Moradella, Mornasca, Moscato di Scanzo, Negrara, Petit Verdot, Pignola, Pinot Noir, Prior, Raboso Veronese, Rebo, Rondinella, Rossola Nera, Sangiovese, Schiava, Schiava Gentile, Schiava Grigia, Schiava Grossa, Serbina, Syrah, Teroldego, Uva Rara, Vespolina
In the vineyard and cellar: rules for every wine
3,500
Vines per hectare, minimum
No forcing
Forcing the vines is prohibited
Permitted
Irrigation
Cellar
Where the wine must be made
Within the production zone
Not allowed
Enrichment (chaptalisation)
02 · Climate fingerprint
The climate
The growing season averages 16.5 °C, intermediate on Gregory Jones's scale, with 1,418 growing degree days (Winkler II).
The average year 1991–2020, vineyards at about 437 m
Monthly mean, °CRain, mmGrowing season
- Growing-season temperature
- 16.5 °C
- Intermediate · 15–17 °C (Jones)
- Growing degree days
- 1,418
- Region II: 1,389–1,666 degree days
- Growing-season rain
- 932 mm
- Of 1,352 mm a year
- Harvest rain
- 266 mm
- September–October
Copernicus ERA5-Land monthly averages at 5 vineyard points (Vineyard point 1, 456 m; Vineyard point 2, 353 m; Vineyard point 3, 467 m; Vineyard point 4, 577 m; Vineyard point 5, 331 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 complex terrain (height corrections up to 7.9 °C); absolute values may be several degrees out, year-to-year changes are more reliable.
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. SeysselVery similarCompared with Sforzato di Valtellina: same season warmth, similar rain.
2. TrentoVery similarCompared with Sforzato di Valtellina: same season warmth, similar rain.
3. CastellerVery similarCompared with Sforzato di Valtellina: 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, 266 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: Sforzato di Valtellina (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: Made only from dried grapes: 11% vol natural alcohol at harvest and at least 14% vol after drying; vinification may not begin before 1 December unless Lombardy authorises it. No drying period in days is set. Winemaking is allowed in neighbouring communes, and ageing and bottling may be authorised across Sondrio province and the Valle di Poschiavo.
- National tier (DOC/DOCG) not captured yet; rules extracted from the specification text.