What is made here
Wine colours
Colours the rules allow. Pick a colour to filter the rules and grapes below.
The source gives no colour for 1 wine category here, so the colours below are incomplete.
Where it is
Malta in Malta
- Latitude
- 35.8°–36.0° N
- Production zone
- 24,670 ha
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 Malta must meet.
In the vineyard and cellar: rules for every wine
Permitted
Irrigation
02 · Climate fingerprint
The climate
The growing season averages 21.7 °C, very hot on Gregory Jones's scale, with 2,502 growing degree days (Winkler V).
The average year 1991–2020, vineyards at about 109 m
Monthly mean, °CRain, mmGrowing season
- Growing-season temperature
- 21.7 °C
- Very hot · above 21 °C (Jones)
- Growing degree days
- 2,502
- Region V: 2,222 and over degree days
- Growing-season rain
- 125 mm
- Of 434 mm a year
- Harvest rain
- 95 mm
- September–October
Copernicus ERA5-Land monthly averages at 3 vineyard points (Vineyard point 1, 49 m; Vineyard point 2, 101 m; Vineyard point 3, 178 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. ΑρχάνεςVery similarCompared with Malta: same season warmth, wetter (+23 mm).
2. Κρασοχώρια ΛεμεσούVery similarCompared with Malta: same season warmth, drier (−42 mm).
3. TaviraVery similarCompared with Malta: same season warmth, wetter (+57 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, 95 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
- ERA5-Land monthly averaged data (reanalysis-era5-land-monthly-means) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), Climate Data Store · CC BY 4.0 (Copernicus licence)
- Single document: Malta (Official Journal C 448, 5.11.2021; and the product specification 'Product Specification_Malta.pdf' from the EU register) · European Union, Official Journal (C series) · EU law (Commission reuse policy)
- Climate profiles calculated by Vinous: method
Still to check (3)
- Generated from EU reference data: check against the current product specification.
- From the specification: The single document is an amendment summary: section 4 gives no analytical limits and the categories are wine, sparkling wine, wine from raisined grapes and wine of overripe grapes. Passito and Imqadded are made 100 % from dried grapes; the only maximum yield stated is 12,000 kg/ha for Malbec; the minimum natural strength of Ġellewża and Girgentina grapes is 10.0 % vol; 'Riżerva' may be replaced by 'Reserve' and requires a vintage on the label. Wines must carry a numbered banderol from the Viticulture and Oenology Unit. Permitted varieties (section 7) include Cabernet franc, Cabernet sauvignon, Chardonnay, Gellewza, Girgentina, Grenache, Merlot, Syrah, Vermentino and others. From the 2011 national product specification: still-wine values are the lowest across types (dry 11.0 % vol total and actual for white and rosé, 11.5 % for red; medium-dry 11.0 total/10.0 actual; sweet 13.0 total/10.0 actual; dry extract 15 g/l white, 17 rosé, 19 red; acidity 4.5 g/l dry white, else 4.0); sparkling wines need 11.0 % vol total and actual, dry extract 14 g/l white, 16 rosé, 18 red. Yields are 84 or 91 hl/ha by variety; the kg/ha figures are stated not to be legal requirements, so are not recorded. Monovarietal grape minimums are 10.5–11.5 % vol, higher than the 10.0 % in the single document, so none is recorded. The specification gives Passito and Imqadded a minimum actual strength of 13.5 % vol, contradicting the 12.0 and 12.5 % recorded. Its 'twelve months in barrique' sentence follows both Riżerva colours, so it is also applied to white Riżerva. Superior and Late Harvest products are added from the specification; enrichment is prohibited for Late Harvest, Passito, Imqadded, Superior and Riżerva.
- National tier (DOC/DOCG) not captured yet; rules extracted from the specification text.