Collioure AOC - Climate and Geography

Climate and Geography

The Collioure wine region is located along the Mediterranean coast in the Roussillon district, extending from the coast up to the foothills of the Pyrenees which separates the area from the Spanish wine region of Catalonia across the border. Both the mountains and the sea have strong influences on the region's distinctly Mediterranean climate. During the summer growing season, temperatures are very warm and dry with the potential for draught. In the evening, cool winds from the mountains descend above the vineyard which can help moderate temperatures for the vines.

Vineyard soils in the area ranging from alluvial soils near the sea and rivers to more gravel, limestone and schist based soils closer to the foothills of the Pyrenees. The soil types will have an impact on the resulting style of wine with the more schist based soils on the higher slopes of the foothills produced more intense, full bodied wines while the more alluvial soils closer to the sea will produce lighter styles of wine.

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