What is made here
Wine colours
Colours the rules allow. Pick a colour to filter the rules and grapes below.
Where it is
Pico in Portugal
- Latitude
- 38.4°–38.6° N
- Vineyard altitude
- 11 m to 70 m
- Production zone
- 17,497 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 Pico must meet.
Blend rules
Pico white wines
- ≥ 85% Arinto dos Açores/Terrantez da Terceira / Verdelho / Terrantez do Pico · Main grape
- – Galego Dourado / Malvasia Fina/Boal · Allowed
Blend rules
Pico 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
Pico sparkling wines
- ≥ 85% Arinto dos Açores/Terrantez da Terceira / Verdelho / Terrantez do Pico · Main grape
- – Galego Dourado / Malvasia Fina/Boal · Allowed
Blend rules
Pico 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.
10 varieties · Pico liqueur wines
Arinto, Boal Branco, Fernão Pires, Galego Dourado, Generosa, Malvasia, Sercial, Terrantez, Terrantez do Pico, Verdelho
In the vineyard and cellar: rules for every wine
100 m
Highest vineyard allowed
Training
Systems allowed
on the ground; goblet (taça); cordon
Cellar
Where the wine must be made
Within the production zone
02 · Climate fingerprint
The climate
The growing season averages 19.5 °C, hot on Gregory Jones's scale, with 2,034 growing degree days (Winkler IV).
The average year 1991–2020, vineyards at about 28 m
Monthly mean, °CRain, mmGrowing season
- Growing-season temperature
- 19.5 °C
- Hot · 19–21 °C (Jones)
- Growing degree days
- 2,034
- Region IV: 1,944–2,221 degree days
- Growing-season rain
- 409 mm
- Of 905 mm a year
- Harvest rain
- 166 mm
- September–October
Copernicus ERA5-Land monthly averages at 5 vineyard points (Vineyard point 1, 52 m; Vineyard point 2, 38 m; Vineyard point 3, 29 m; Vineyard point 4, 6 m; Vineyard point 5, 15 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: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. Bolgheri SassicaiaVery similarCompared with Pico: same season warmth, similar rain.
2. BolgheriVery similarCompared with Pico: same season warmth, similar rain.
3. Aglianico del TaburnoVery similarCompared with Pico: 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, 166 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: Pico (Official Journal C, C/2024/2366, 27.3.2024; and the product specification 'Caderno especificações DO Pico 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. The liqueur wines' minimum actual strength is printed as 11 % vol, the same as the still wines, which looks low for a liqueur wine. Liqueur wines are usually dry or medium-dry but may be medium-sweet or sweet. Grapes must come from vinhas estremes trained close to the ground (goblet or cordon) on basaltic lithic soils; the area is land at 100 m or less in parts of Madalena, São Roque and Lajes. The national specification (2014) covers only the liqueur wine and sets the maximum yield at 50 hl/ha, against 70 hl/ha in the single document (kept). Its CVRAçores analytical limits for still DO wines (VQPRD): total acidity at least 4.5 g/l tartaric, dry extract at least 17 g/l, reducing sugars at most 5 g/l; liqueur wines may be Seco (up to 15 g/l), Meio Seco (15-30 g/l) or Doce (30-60 g/l), and may carry Reserva or Superior.
- National tier (DOC/DOCG) not captured yet; rules extracted from the specification text.