Sages are important medicinal and aromatic plants. While Salvia officinalis and S. miltiorrhiza have been widely studied, poor information are available on S. dolomitica which is recently addressing attention for its antiplasmodial and anti-inflammatory properties. The current study investigated the performances and the metabolic profile of this minor species in response to drought stress. Plants were exposed to three treatments: control, moderate drought stress, or severe drought stress.Changes in growth and ecophysiological traits, in active and volatile compounds, and essential oils production were determined. As the terpenoids are the most representative class of secondary metabolites, the gene expression of key enzymes of terpenoid biosynthesis has been also investigated. Moderate drought induced a drop of leaf water potential, growth, and stomatal conductance, while an increase of deyhdrin expression level. However, serious stress symptoms such as decrease of net photosynthesis and transpiration rate and increase of endogenous abscisic acid were observed only in severe drought stressed plants. Both drought stress conditions lead to modulate the expression of some genes involved in BVOCs and EOs biosynthesis and the metabolic profile. In particular, drought induced an increase of sesquiterpenes, a class of terpenoids with high importance in food, cosmetic and pharmaceutical industry. Thus, we can speculate that moderate drought stress, in addition to allowing water savings during cultivation, can lead to an improvement in the production of secondary metabolites in S. dolomitica.