What is made here
Wine colours
Colours the rules allow. Pick a colour to filter the rules and grapes below.
Where it is
Bucelas in Portugal
- Latitude
- 38.8°–38.9° N
- Vineyard altitude
- 25 m to 176 m
- Production zone
- 7,400 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 Bucelas must meet.
Blend rules
Bucelas branco
- ≥ 75% Arinto · Main grape
- – Esgana-Cão / Rabo-de-Ovelha · Allowed
Blend rules
Bucelas espumante
- ≥ 75% Arinto · Main grape
- – Esgana-Cão / Rabo-de-Ovelha · Allowed
Other varieties allowed
Besides the main grapes, the rules allow these varieties in some wines. Grape names link where a profile exists.
3 varieties · Bucelas branco
Arinto, Rabo de Ovelha, Sercial
In the vineyard and cellar: rules for every wine
3,300
Vines per hectare, minimum
Training
Systems allowed
taça (gobelet); bardo (hedge); cordão (cordon); forma baixa (low-trained)
Cellar
Where the wine must be made
Within the production zone
02 · Climate fingerprint
The climate
The growing season averages 19.1 °C, hot on Gregory Jones's scale, with 1,938 growing degree days (Winkler III).
The average year 1991–2020, vineyards at about 90 m
Monthly mean, °CRain, mmGrowing season
- Growing-season temperature
- 19.1 °C
- Hot · 19–21 °C (Jones)
- Growing degree days
- 1,938
- Region III: 1,667–1,943 degree days
- Growing-season rain
- 254 mm
- Of 608 mm a year
- Harvest rain
- 117 mm
- September–October
Copernicus ERA5-Land monthly averages at 5 vineyard points (Vineyard point 1, 109 m; Vineyard point 2, 25 m; Vineyard point 3, 158 m; Vineyard point 4, 6 m; Vineyard point 5, 154 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. Ρομπόλα ΚεφαλληνίαςVery similarCompared with Bucelas: same season warmth, similar rain.
2. ΜαντινείαVery similarCompared with Bucelas: same season warmth, similar rain.
3. AlmansaVery similarCompared with Bucelas: same season warmth, drier (−30 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, 117 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
- Product specification: Bucelas (CVRLisboa-Caderno Especificações DO BUCELAS 2011 final.pdf) · National authority, as filed in the EU register (eAmbrosia) · Official document
- Climate profiles calculated by Vinous: method
Still to check (3)
- Generated from EU reference data: check against the current product specification.
- From the specification: White wines only (still and sparkling); made by 'bica aberta' (free-run, without skin contact). The 75 % Arinto minimum applies to each holding's vineyard plantings, not the blend. The 70 hl/ha yield may be adjusted annually by up to 25 %. The 'acidez fixa' minimum is recorded as total acidity. Sparkling base wine must qualify as DOC Bucelas; only the term Colheita Seleccionada applies to sparkling wine. Minimum density applies to new vineyards; vines at least three years from grafting.
- National tier (DOC/DOCG) not captured yet; rules extracted from the specification text.