What is made here
Wine colours
Colours the rules allow. Pick a colour to filter the rules and grapes below.
Where it is
Lafões in Portugal
- Latitude
- 40.6°–40.9° N
- Production zone
- 68,799 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 Lafões must meet.
Blend rules
Lafões vinho tinto
- – Amaral / Jaen / Tourigo · Main grape
- ≥ 40% Amaral · Main grape
Blend rules
Lafões vinho branco
- ≥ 85% Arinto / Cercial · Main grape
- ≥ 50% Arinto · Main grape
- – Dona-Branca / 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.
8 varieties ·
Amaral, Arinto, Cercial, Esgana Cão Tinto, Folha de Figueira, Jaen, Rabo de Ovelha, Touriga Nacional
In the vineyard and cellar: rules for every wine
Training
Systems allowed
taça; cordão
Cellar
Where the wine must be made
Within the production zone
02 · Climate fingerprint
The climate
The growing season averages 18.5 °C, warm on Gregory Jones's scale, with 1,823 growing degree days (Winkler III).
The average year 1991–2020, vineyards at about 263 m
Monthly mean, °CRain, mmGrowing season
- Growing-season temperature
- 18.5 °C
- Warm · 17–19 °C (Jones)
- Growing degree days
- 1,823
- Region III: 1,667–1,943 degree days
- Growing-season rain
- 686 mm
- Of 1,531 mm a year
- Harvest rain
- 290 mm
- September–October
Copernicus ERA5-Land monthly averages at 1 vineyard points (Vineyard point 1, 263 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:No vineyards are mapped here yet, so this is the climate at one point in the middle of the zone, which may not be where the vines are. Monthly reanalysis in complex terrain (height corrections up to 1.8 °C); absolute values may be several degrees out, year-to-year changes are more reliable.
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. Colline di LevantoVery similarCompared with Lafões: same season warmth, similar rain.
2. Colli BericiVery similarCompared with Lafões: same season warmth, similar rain.
3. BardolinoVery similarCompared with Lafões: 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, 290 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)
- Product specification: Lafões (DOP LAFÕES 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: The 9.5 % vol minimum is stated as 'título alcoométrico volúmico mínimo' without saying acquired or total; it is recorded as acquired. Variety shares (Amaral at least 40 %; Arinto and Cercial at least 85 % with Arinto at 50 %) refer to the vineyard planting (encepamento). Vines must be at least four years from grafting; the first wire must be at least 0.8 m high. Traditional terms (Reserva, Garrafeira, Colheita Tardia etc.) follow Portaria 924/2004, not restated here.
- National tier (DOC/DOCG) not captured yet; rules extracted from the specification text.