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Lieu-dit · Ambonnay

Le Bas des Bermonts

Le Bas des Bermonts is a lieu-dit in Ambonnay, Montagne de Reims, Champagne, whose largest tier is grand cru.

0.11 ha

delimited

115 m

elevation

12.0 h

sun at harvest

Open on the mapWith the boundary, the plots, the sun through the year and the bedrock.

In figures

LevelGrand Cruinao-aoc-viticoles-bulk (not in this commune)
VillageAmbonnay
RegionMontagne de Reims, Champagne
Delimited0.11 hainao-aoc-viticoles-bulk (not in this commune) · cadastre-etalab (4 September 2026)
Planted0.10 hacadastre-etalab (4 September 2026) · ign-bdtopo-vigne (4 September 2026) · ign-rpg-2024 (5 September 2026)
Parcels2
Grape varietypinot 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)
Organic0%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:

sun at harvest 16
elevation 70
slope 21
on the slope 9

Position

115 m

elevation

10.5%

firm

SSW

south-southwest

upper

even slope

Elevation115 m 113 to 117 mign-rge-alti (5 September 2026)
Daytime temperature+0.20 °C by day, relative to the village centre at 142 m, ± 0.12 °Cmeteo-france-quotidiennes (6 September 2026) · meteo-france-postes (6 September 2026) · meteo-france-lsh (6 September 2026) · ign-rge-alti (5 September 2026)
Slope10.5% 6.0°ign-rge-alti (5 September 2026)
Aspectsouth-southwest 205°ign-rge-alti (5 September 2026)
On the slope52% upper slope, on an even plane, 165 m drains onto itign-rge-alti (5 September 2026)

Bedrock

  • 100%Santonian chalk of Châlons 86–⁠84 million years

In the glass. The distinction from the Campanian chalk cannot be firmly made in practice; slope, soil depth and vine age weigh more heavily. (weak indication)

White chalk with the sea urchin Micraster coranguinum, deposited on an open, fairly deep shelf between roughly 86 and 84 million years ago, with flint bands at several levels, unlike the flint-poor Campanian chalk above it. It is the same soft, porous lime mud as the younger chalk, locally with harder, cemented beds. The name Craie de Châlons refers to Châlons-en-Champagne, not to the Châlons-sur-Vesle of unit e3cC.

For the vine. The physics of chalk is that of all chalk: a large store of water in fine pores, slowly available, and rooting that follows cracks to several metres deep. The soils generally have a high active lime content, with the associated risk of chlorosis and the choice of lime-tolerant rootstocks. Where this chalk lies flat and the soil above it is thin, it quickly becomes meagre and cold in spring.

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: c4.

brgm-bdcharm50 (4 September 2026)

Sun and horizon

07:44

over the crest of the slope

19:43

behind the hill

12.0 h

sun at harvest

Grey: sun up, but behind the hill or the vineyard's own slope.

Around harvest the sun rises here at 07:44 over the crest of the slope and disappears at 19:43 behind the hill: 12.0 hours of direct sun on a clear day. The ridge reaches 7.6° above the horizon to the north.

Irradiation+2.6% versus flat land 1,044 kWh/m² from April to October, 44% 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)
Three reference days and the caveat
risesetsunday
21 June06:1921:3915.3 h16.2 h
20 September07:4419:4312.0 h12.3 h
21 December08:3716:478.2 h8.2 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.

ign-rge-alti (5 September 2026) · ign-lidarhd-mnh (6 September 2026) · ign-bdforet-v2 (5 September 2026)

Air and cold

19 m

above the lowest point

drains away

cold air

little inflow

0.4 ha flows past

Cold air19 m above the hollow, cold air drains awayign-rge-alti (5 September 2026)
Cold air passing through0.4 ha little inflow, mean over the polygon 0.15 haign-rge-alti (5 September 2026)

Planting

ESE-WNW

across the slope

1.35 m

between the rows

100%

vineyard in 1950

RowsESE-WNW (124°) across the slope (81°), every 1.35 m, all rows parallelmeasured over 0.1 of 0.1 ha plantedign-bdortho (6 September 2026)
Vineyard in 1950100%assessed over 0.1 ha on the 1950-1965 aerial photographign-photos-historiques-1950-1965 (6 September 2026)

Climate over time

19802000202012°14°16°18°

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

0.11 ha of 0.11 ha delimited is registered to a legal entity

  • CHAMPAGNE P LOUIS MARTIN100%

Share of the delimited hectares. Only legal entities are public in France; everything else stays unnamed. From the public register of legal entities (DGFiP), as of 1 January 2025. The owner is not always the one who works the vineyard: tenancy is common.

Nearby lieux-dits

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.