Morocco

Africa

Meknès and nearby Atlas foothills form a major centre of Moroccan wine, with familiar international grapes and protected local origins.

Meknès is an important starting point for Morocco’s wine geography. Vineyards around the city and the Middle Atlas foothills include protected origins such as Guerrouane, Beni M’Tir and Les Coteaux de l’Atlas. Elevation and local exposure complicate any simple assumption that North African vineyards all have the same growing conditions.

Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Syrah and Chardonnay are established varieties in contemporary production. Reds, whites, rosés and very pale gris wines all have a place in the range. A gris description concerns the wine’s colour and production style; it is not the name of a separate Moroccan grape.

Morocco uses protected origin designations, including AOG and AOC. These identify delimited areas and production conditions, rather than an informal producer rating. Read the actual appellation with the grape, colour and producer when comparing bottles. Wines from different estates or origins can share a familiar international variety while following different cellar approaches.

What the label says

AOCAppellation d’Origine Contrôlée
A protected, regulated origin category, including Les Coteaux de l’Atlas.
AOGAppellation d’Origine Garantie
A protected designation for wines from a delimited Moroccan origin.

Signature grapes

our choice

Key regions

  • Meknès
  • Guerrouane
  • Beni M’Tir
  • Les Coteaux de l’Atlas

A dashed outline is a region we describe but do not yet hold a page for.

Grapes that originate here

1

Worth knowing

  • Meknès is a major wine centre; Moroccan vineyards are not all coastal or low-lying.
  • Gris is a pale wine style, not a grape name.
  • AOG and AOC are protected origin categories.

More in Africa

Sources

The description, the reading of the classification system and the choice of signature grapes are ours. Region and grape records are built from Wikidata (CC0) and Wikipedia infoboxes (CC BY-SA 4.0). American AVA boundaries come from the TTB (public domain).