What is made here
Wine colours
Colours the rules allow. Pick a colour to filter the rules and grapes below.
Where it is
Colares in Portugal
- Latitude
- 38.7°–38.9° N
- Vineyard altitude
- 20 m to 177 m
- Production zone
- 18,047 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 Colares must meet.
Blend rules
Colares tinto
- ≥ 80% Ramisco · Main grape
- – João-Santarém / Molar / Parreira-Matias · Allowed
- ≤ 10% chão rijo (hard-soil) vineyard products · Others allowed
Blend rules
Colares branco
- ≥ 80% Malvasia · Main grape
- – Arinto / Galego-Dourado / Jampal · Allowed
- ≤ 10% chão rijo (hard-soil) vineyard products · Others allowed
Other varieties allowed
Besides the main grapes, the rules allow these varieties in some wines. Grape names link where a profile exists.
10 varieties ·
Arinto, Castelão, Fernão Pires, Galego Dourado, Jampal, Malvasia, Parreira Matias, Tinta Miúda, Tinta Negra, Vital
In the vineyard and cellar: rules for every wine
Training
Systems allowed
forma baixa (low-trained), lowest wire at most 30 cm
Cellar
Where the wine must be made
Within the production zone
02 · Climate fingerprint
The climate
The growing season averages 17.7 °C, warm on Gregory Jones's scale, with 1,644 growing degree days (Winkler II).
The average year 1991–2020, vineyards at about 128 m
Monthly mean, °CRain, mmGrowing season
- Growing-season temperature
- 17.7 °C
- Warm · 17–19 °C (Jones)
- Growing degree days
- 1,644
- Region II: 1,389–1,666 degree days
- Growing-season rain
- 252 mm
- Of 662 mm a year
- Harvest rain
- 119 mm
- September–October
Copernicus ERA5-Land monthly averages at 5 vineyard points (Vineyard point 1, 102 m; Vineyard point 2, 89 m; Vineyard point 3, 198 m; Vineyard point 4, 157 m; Vineyard point 5, 96 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. ToroVery similarCompared with Colares: same season warmth, drier (−29 mm).
2. CalatayudVery similarCompared with Colares: same season warmth, similar rain.
3. ArribesVery similarCompared with Colares: same season warmth, wetter (+44 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, 119 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: Colares (CVRLisboa-Caderno Especificações DO COLARES 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: Minimum ageing before sale: red 18 months in vessel then 6 months in bottle (24 months in all); white 6 months in vessel then 3 months in bottle (9 months in all); vessel type is not specified. The 10 % vol minimum is written as 'título alcoométrico mínimo' without saying actual or total; recorded as actual. Grape shares apply to sand-soil (chão de areia) vineyards; up to 10 % may come from hard-soil (chão rijo) vineyards, where João-Santarém (red) or Malvasia (white) must be at least 80 %. Vines must be at least four years from grafting; sand-soil vines are planted ungrafted by the traditional 'unhar' method. Quality terms Superior, Escolha, Colheita Seleccionada, Reserva, Garrafeira and Velho need a higher tasting score only.
- National tier (DOC/DOCG) not captured yet; rules extracted from the specification text.