What is made here
Wine colours
The only colour the rules allow.
Where it is
Valtellina rosso in Italy
- Latitude
- 46.0°–46.3° N
- Vineyard altitude
- 331 m to 669 m
- Production zone
- 60,622 ha
Contains 2 appellations (outlined on the zone map)
Sforzato di Valtellina, Valtellina Superiore
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 Valtellina rosso must meet.
Blend rules
Valtellina Rosso/Rosso di Valtellina
- ≥ 90% Nebbiolo (Chiavennasca) · Main grape
- ≤ 10% other non-aromatic red grapes suitable in Lombardia · Others allowed
At least 6 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 · Valtellina Rosso/Rosso di Valtellina
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
02 · Climate fingerprint
The climate
The growing season averages 15.8 °C, intermediate on Gregory Jones's scale, with 1,285 growing degree days (Winkler Ib).
The average year 1991–2020, vineyards at about 551 m
Monthly mean, °CRain, mmGrowing season
- Growing-season temperature
- 15.8 °C
- Intermediate · 15–17 °C (Jones)
- Growing degree days
- 1,285
- Region Ib: 1,111–1,388 degree days
- Growing-season rain
- 972 mm
- Of 1,398 mm a year
- Harvest rain
- 274 mm
- September–October
Copernicus ERA5-Land monthly averages at 5 vineyard points (Vineyard point 1, 683 m; Vineyard point 2, 577 m; Vineyard point 3, 441 m; Vineyard point 4, 371 m; Vineyard point 5, 684 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 7.3 °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. Vin de SavoieVery similarCompared with Valtellina rosso: +0.3 °C in the growing season, similar rain.
2. Roussette de SavoieVery similarCompared with Valtellina rosso: +0.3 °C in the growing season, similar rain.
3. Colline SaluzzesiVery similarCompared with Valtellina rosso: same season warmth, wetter (+97 mm).
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, 274 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: Valtellina rosso (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: May be labelled with the variety Nebbiolo (or Chiavennasca). The wine yield limit is set directly at 70 hl/ha rather than as a percentage; ageing may also take place in Brusio and Poschiavo (Switzerland) with authorisation.
- National tier (DOC/DOCG) not captured yet; rules extracted from the specification text.