Lieu-dit · Ambonnay
Le Bas Chienet
Le Bas Chienet is a lieu-dit in Ambonnay, Montagne de Reims, Champagne, whose largest tier is grand cru.
1.89 ha
delimited
143 m
elevation
11.6 h
sun at harvest
Open on the mapWith the boundary, the plots, the sun through the year and the bedrock.
In figures
| Level | Grand Cruinao-aoc-viticoles-bulk (not in this commune) |
|---|---|
| Village | Ambonnay |
| Region | Montagne de Reims, Champagne |
| Delimited | 1.89 hainao-aoc-viticoles-bulk (not in this commune) · cadastre-etalab (4 September 2026) |
| Planted | 1.83 hacadastre-etalab (4 September 2026) · ign-bdtopo-vigne (4 September 2026) · ign-rpg-2024 (5 September 2026) |
| Parcels | 23 |
| Grape variety | pinot noir 81 %, chardonnay 19 % also permitted: arbane, petit meslier, pinot blanc, pinot grisinao-cahiers-des-charges (7 September 2026) · dgddi-superficies-produits (7 September 2026) · franceagrimer-observatoire-viticulture (7 September 2026) |
| Organic | 0%agence-bio-cartobio (c. 5 September 2026) · agence-bio-operateurs (5 September 2026) |
Place in the village
Among the 76 named plots ranked grand cru in Ambonnay, from high to low:
Position
143 m
elevation
5.6%
gentle
SSE
south-southeast
mid-slope
even slope
| Elevation | 143 m 138 to 149 mign-rge-alti (5 September 2026) |
|---|---|
| Slope | 5.6% 3.2°ign-rge-alti (5 September 2026) |
| Aspect | south-southeast 155°ign-rge-alti (5 September 2026) |
| On the slope | 24% mid slope, on an even plane, 601 m drains onto itign-rge-alti (5 September 2026) |
Bedrock
- 16%Colluvium, mixed slope deposit about 0.1–0 million years
- 84%Campanian chalk of Reims 83.6–79 million years
Not a borehole: ordered by age, thickness by share of surface.
In the glass. Wines from these soils generally have high acidity and a taut profile. The often-cited salty note is a tasting term, not a measurable substance from the rock; for chalk the link between soil and wine style is relatively well researched, mainly through water supply and rooting depth.
Pure white chalk, deposited in a warm shallow sea in the Late Cretaceous and built up almost entirely from the calcareous skeletons of single-celled algae, with belemnites and sea urchins in it. It is not a hard stone but a soft, porous rock that can be scratched with a fingernail and that breaks down into white lumps in the vineyard. Lower Campanian (zone of Gonioteuthis quadrata, formerly Actinocamax quadratus), roughly 83.6 to about 79 million years old.
For the vine. Chalk drains well and yet holds a great deal of moisture: the rock is roughly forty per cent porous and stores hundreds of litres of water per cubic metre, which the vine can take up gradually in a dry summer, so that the water supply remains regular. The roots penetrate deep into the parent rock through cracks, as long as there is not too much slope material on top. The soils generally have a very high active lime content, so lime-tolerant rootstocks such as 41B are indispensable; the white soil reflects light back to the underside of the canopy.
Characteristic of the Côte des Blancs (Cramant, Avize, Le Mesnil-sur-Oger) and of the mid-slopes of the Montagne de Reims, where the chalk lies beneath a thin slope layer.
BRGM geological map at 1:50,000. It tells vineyards apart, not plots within a vineyard. The link between rock and taste is indirect: soil depth, water and warmth do the work, and slope, vine age and the cellar do the rest. Units on that map: c5a, C.
brgm-bdcharm50 (4 September 2026)Sun and horizon
07:47
above the hill
19:23
behind the hill
11.6 h
sun at harvest
0.6 h
lost to the hill
Grey: sun up, behind the hill or its own slope.
Around harvest the sun rises here at 07:47 above the hill and disappears at 19:23 behind the hill: 11.6 hours of direct sun on a clear day. The ridge reaches 8.3° above the horizon to the north-northwest.
| Irradiation | +1.4% versus flat land 1,032 kWh/m² from April to October, 45% of it diffuseunder the average cloudiness of 2005 to 2023 (PVGIS-SARAH3, EU JRC); direct, diffuse and reflected light togetherign-rge-alti (5 September 2026) · ign-lidarhd-mnh (6 September 2026) · ign-bdforet-v2 (5 September 2026) · jrc-pvgis-sarah3 (10 September 2026) |
|---|---|
| Open sky | 99.6% of the sky the slope itself sees; the surrounding relief blocks the restign-rge-alti (5 September 2026) · ign-lidarhd-mnh (6 September 2026) · ign-bdforet-v2 (5 September 2026) |
Three reference days, the caveat
| rise | set | sun | day | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 21 June | 06:12 | 21:04 | 14.9 h | 16.2 h |
| 20 September | 07:47 | 19:23 | 11.6 h | 12.3 h |
| 21 December | 08:55 | 16:38 | 7.7 h | 8.2 h |
Computed from the IGN elevation model at 5 m: horizon in 36 directions up to six kilometres, sun position per minute, angle of incidence on the mean slope. Clear sky, with the tree canopy from the IGN forest inventory as a raised horizon (15 m closed forest, 5 m heath, trees within 60 m ignored), 24% of the far field is forest (BD Forêt), no buildings.
Air and cold
11 m
above the lowest point
drains away
cold air
a main drain
64.4 ha flows past
| Cold air | 11 m above the hollow, cold air drains awayign-rge-alti (5 September 2026) |
|---|---|
| Cold air passing through | 64.4 ha a main drain, mean over the polygon 3.23 haign-rge-alti (5 September 2026) |
Planting
N-S
down the slope
1.13 m
between the rows
100%
vineyard in 1950
| Rows | N-S (173°) down the slope (18°), every 1.13 m, varies by plotmeasured over 1.7 of 1.8 ha plantedign-bdortho (6 September 2026) |
|---|---|
| Vineyard in 1950 | 100%assessed over 1.4 ha on the 1950-1965 aerial photographign-photos-historiques-1950-1965 (6 September 2026) |
Climate over time
station FAGNIERES-INRAE, 105 m, 19.5 km away
raw daily series, not corrected for station breaks
The name
- bas
- low, the lower part of a named plot. Shape and position · Terroirium, Eigen telling over de namen in deze atlas (2026)
This is about the words, not about this plot: the same name can have arisen differently elsewhere.
Who owns land here
No parcel here is registered to a legal entity. In France only those owners are public; parcels of private individuals are not.
Nearby lieux-dits
- Le Chienet Grand Cru · 150 m
- Les Saints Rémys Grand Cru · 150 m
- Les Feuchères Grand Cru · 200 m
- Les Hauts Champs Seaux Grand Cru · 200 m
- Le Haut Chienet Grand Cru · 200 m
- Les Daviottes Grand Cru · 250 m
- Les Hautes Pierres Grand Cru · 250 m
- La Sotabienne Grand Cru · 250 m
In the same village, measured between label points. That does not say which ones border each other; the map shows that.
Where each figure comes from
- Classification
- The INAO delimitation per denomination, cut against the cadastral parcel. Only the INAO's own plans are legally binding; this map is informational.
- Area
- Computed on the sphere from longitude and latitude (turf.area), not in Lambert-93. For an appellation this is the union of the INAO polygons across commune boundaries, measured on the unclosed geometry; the fifteen metres used to close the outline for the map are not counted. For a climat it is the union of the cadastral lieu-dit polygons with that name.
- Planted
- Parcel area times vineyard cover, where cover comes from the IGN vegetation layer supplemented by the agricultural declaration. Checked against the customs harvest declarations: median deviation 5.1 per cent over a hundred appellations.
- Elevation
- Mean of the elevation-model cells whose centre falls inside the polygon, on a 5 m grid.
- Slope
- Per-cell slope from the elevation model using Horn's method, then averaged over the cells in the polygon.
- Aspect
- Vector mean of the per-cell aspect. A plain average would turn north-east and north-west into south.
- Sun at harvest
- Hours of direct sun on 20 September under a clear sky, with the horizon in 36 directions out to six kilometres and the height of woods and buildings on top of it. Canopy height is measured where LiDAR HD covers the area and estimated from BD Forêt where it does not; the panel states which of the two was used.
- Grape variety by appellation
- Per appellation and colour the permitted varieties from the approved cahier des charges; per appellation and tier the declared hectares of white and red from the customs harvest declaration (product codes). One colour permitted: the main variety of that colour. Two colours: from 85 percent of the hectares that colour applies, in between it is called mixed. Champagne: the dominant variety from the planted hectares per variety per commune from FranceAgriMer. Per polygon the dominant variety of its parts by area. Derived, not measured: the variety per plot exists only in the customs vineyard register, which is not public. In a two-colour appellation a single plot may carry the other variety. Customs withhold small appellations (statistical secrecy), in which case the split is missing.
- Bedrock
- The geological unit covering the largest share of the polygon, from the 1:50,000 geological map. At 1:50,000 the map separates one climat from another, but not what varies inside a climat.
- Organic
- Share of the area certified organic or in conversion, from the CartoBio plot register.