What is made here
Wine colours
Colours the rules allow. Pick a colour to filter the rules and grapes below.
Where it is
Biscoitos in Portugal
- Latitude
- 38.7°–38.8° N
- Vineyard altitude
- 8 m to 100 m
- Production zone
- 2,708 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 Biscoitos must meet.
Blend rules
Biscoitos wines
- ≥ 85% Arinto dos Açores/Terrantez da Terceira / Verdelho / Terrantez do Pico · Main grape
- – Galego Dourado / Malvasia Fina/Boal · Allowed
Blend rules
Biscoitos liqueur wines
- ≥ 85% Arinto dos Açores/Terrantez da Terceira / Verdelho / Terrantez do Pico · Main grape
- – Galego Dourado / Malvasia Fina/Boal · Allowed
At least 36 months' ageing.
Blend rules
Biscoitos sparkling wines
- ≥ 85% Arinto dos Açores/Terrantez da Terceira / Verdelho / Terrantez do Pico · Main grape
- – Galego Dourado / Malvasia Fina/Boal · Allowed
Blend rules
Biscoitos wines of overripe grapes
- ≥ 85% Arinto dos Açores/Terrantez da Terceira / Verdelho / Terrantez do Pico · Main grape
- – Galego Dourado / Malvasia Fina/Boal · Allowed
At least 36 months' ageing.
Other varieties allowed
Besides the main grapes, the rules allow these varieties in some wines. Grape names link where a profile exists.
9 varieties · Biscoitos liqueur wines
Arinto, Boal Branco, Fernão Pires, Galego Dourado, Generosa, Malvasia, Sercial, Terrantez, Verdelho
In the vineyard and cellar: rules for every wine
100 m
Highest vineyard allowed
Training
Systems allowed
no chão; taça; cordão
02 · Climate fingerprint
The climate
The growing season averages 19.3 °C, hot on Gregory Jones's scale, with 1,993 growing degree days (Winkler IV).
The average year 1991–2020, vineyards at about 50 m
Monthly mean, °CRain, mmGrowing season
- Growing-season temperature
- 19.3 °C
- Hot · 19–21 °C (Jones)
- Growing degree days
- 1,993
- Region IV: 1,944–2,221 degree days
- Growing-season rain
- 379 mm
- Of 827 mm a year
- Harvest rain
- 154 mm
- September–October
Copernicus ERA5-Land monthly averages at 5 vineyard points (Vineyard point 1, 40 m; Vineyard point 2, 59 m; Vineyard point 3, 100 m; Vineyard point 4, 8 m; Vineyard point 5, 45 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:The vineyards are on land too small for the reanalysis grid, so the nearest land cell (up to 12 km away) is used; island climates are usually milder than this. 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. ЛомVery similarCompared with Biscoitos: same season warmth, similar rain.
2. Côtes de ProvenceVery similarCompared with Biscoitos: same season warmth, similar rain.
3. BifernoVery similarCompared with Biscoitos: 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, 154 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)
- 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
- Single document: Biscoitos (Official Journal C 2024/1740, 26.2.2024; and the product specification 'Caderno especificações DO Biscoitos final_25.06.14.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: Minimum total acidity is given as 46.6 milliequivalents per litre, not g/l tartaric acid, so it is not recorded. Liqueur wines are usually dry or medium-dry but may be medium-sweet or sweet. Grapes must come from vinhas estremes with vines trained close to the ground (goblet or cordon) on basaltic lithic soils; the area is land at 100 m or less in Biscoitos parish. Ageing periods are minimums before bottling. The 2014 national specification (liqueur wine only) fixes the maximum yield at 50 hl/ha, contradicting the 70 hl/ha recorded from the single document. Its analytical table (CVRAçores internal rules) applies to VQPRD (still wine) and VLQPRD (liqueur wine): acidity ≥ 4.5 g/l tartaric for both, dry extract ≥ 17 and 21 g/l, reducing sugars ≤ 5 and ≤ 60 g/l; liqueur wine is sold as Seco (up to 15 g/l), Meio Seco (15–30) or Doce (30–60), and may be labelled Reserva or Superior. Training systems are on the ground, goblet (taça) or cordon.
- National tier (DOC/DOCG) not captured yet; rules extracted from the specification text.