What is made here
Wine colours
Colours the rules allow. Pick a colour to filter the rules and grapes below.
Where it is
Velletri in Italy
- Latitude
- 41.5°–41.8° N
- Vineyard altitude
- 62 m to 155 m
- Production zone
- 28,444 ha
Lies within
Castelli Romani
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 Velletri must meet.
Blend rules
Velletri Bianco
- ≤ 70% Malvasia bianca di Candia / Malvasia puntinata · Main grape
- ≥ 30% Trebbiano toscano / Trebbiano verde / Trebbiano giallo · Main grape
- ≤ 20% other white grapes suitable for Lazio · Others allowed
Blend rules
Velletri Rosso
- 10–45% Sangiovese · Main grape
- 30–50% Montepulciano · Main grape
- ≥ 10% Cesanese comune / Cesanese d’Affile · Main grape
- ≤ 30% other black grapes suitable for Lazio · Others allowed
Blend rules
Velletri Rosso Riserva
- 10–45% Sangiovese · Main grape
- 30–50% Montepulciano · Main grape
- ≥ 10% Cesanese comune / Cesanese d’Affile · Main grape
- ≤ 30% other black grapes suitable for Lazio · Others allowed
At least 24 months' ageing.
Blend rules
Velletri Superiore
- ≤ 70% Malvasia bianca di Candia / Malvasia puntinata · Main grape
- ≥ 30% Trebbiano toscano / Trebbiano verde / Trebbiano giallo · Main grape
- ≤ 20% other white grapes suitable for Lazio · Others allowed
Blend rules
Velletri Spumante
- ≤ 70% Malvasia bianca di Candia / Malvasia puntinata · Main grape
- ≥ 30% Trebbiano toscano / Trebbiano verde / Trebbiano giallo · Main grape
- ≤ 20% other white grapes suitable for Lazio · Others allowed
Other varieties allowed
Besides the main grapes, the rules allow these varieties in some wines. Grape names link where a profile exists.
36 varieties · Velletri Bianco, Velletri Superiore, Velletri Spumante
Bellone, Biancolella, Bombino Bianco, Canaiolo Bianco, Capolongo, Falanghina, Fiano, Forastera, Friulano, Grechetto, Greco, Greco Bianco, Guarnaccia, Malvasia Bianca Lunga, Manzoni Bianco, Maturano, Montonico Bianco, Moscato Giallo, Moscato di Terracina, Mostosa, Muscat Blanc A Petits Grains, Pampanaro, Passerina, Pecorino, Petit Manseng, Pinot Blanc, Riesling, Sauvignon Blanc, Semillon, Trebbiano Giallo, Trebbiano di Soave, Verdello, Vermentino, Vernaccia di S. Giminiano, Viognier, Welschriesling
28 varieties · Velletri Rosso, Velletri Rosso Riserva
Abbuoto, Aglianico, Alicante, Ancellotta, Barbera, Bombino Nero, Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Calabrese, Canaiolo Nero, Carignan, Cesanese D Affile, Cesenese Nero, Ciliegiolo, Grechetto Rosso, Lambrusco Maestri, Lecinaro, Merlot, Nero Buono, Olivella Nera, Petit Verdot, Piedirosso, Pinot Noir, Primitivo, Sciascinoso, Syrah, Tannat, Tempranillo
In the vineyard and cellar: rules for every wine
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 20.0 °C, hot on Gregory Jones's scale, with 2,147 growing degree days (Winkler IV).
The average year 1991–2020, vineyards at about 88 m
Monthly mean, °CRain, mmGrowing season
- Growing-season temperature
- 20.0 °C
- Hot · 19–21 °C (Jones)
- Growing degree days
- 2,147
- Region IV: 1,944–2,221 degree days
- Growing-season rain
- 487 mm
- Of 1,031 mm a year
- Harvest rain
- 228 mm
- September–October
Copernicus ERA5-Land monthly averages at 5 vineyard points (Vineyard point 1, 147 m; Vineyard point 2, 51 m; Vineyard point 3, 80 m; Vineyard point 4, 98 m; Vineyard point 5, 62 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 moderately complex terrain; not yet checked against a weather station.
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. VesuvioVery similarCompared with Velletri: same season warmth, similar rain.
2. CerveteriVery similarCompared with Velletri: same season warmth, drier (−56 mm).
3. Bosco EliceoVery similarCompared with Velletri: 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, 228 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: Velletri (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: Velletri bianco and rosso may be secco or amabile (bianco also dolce, over 20 g/l reducing sugars), so no single sweetness is recorded for them. The spumante is made from Velletri bianco wine, so the bianco grape, yield and natural-alcohol rules are repeated for it; its elaboration must last at least twelve months and sparkling-wine making may take place anywhere in Lazio.
- National tier (DOC/DOCG) not captured yet; rules extracted from the specification text.