Lieu-dit · Ambonnay
Le Haut des Blanches Voies
Le Haut des Blanches Voies is a lieu-dit in Ambonnay, Montagne de Reims, Champagne, whose largest tier is grand cru.
4.25 ha
delimited
127 m
elevation
11.9 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 | 4.25 hainao-aoc-viticoles-bulk (not in this commune) · cadastre-etalab (4 September 2026) |
| Planted | 4.15 hacadastre-etalab (4 September 2026) · ign-bdtopo-vigne (4 September 2026) · ign-rpg-2024 (5 September 2026) |
| Parcels | 41 |
| 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 | 7%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
127 m
elevation
5.6%
gentle
E
east
mid-slope
even slope
| Elevation | 127 m 121 to 134 mign-rge-alti (5 September 2026) |
|---|---|
| Daytime temperature | +0.11 °C by day, relative to the village centre at 142 m, ± 0.05 °Cmeteo-france-quotidiennes (6 September 2026) · meteo-france-postes (6 September 2026) · meteo-france-lsh (6 September 2026) · ign-rge-alti (5 September 2026) |
| Slope | 5.6% 3.2°ign-rge-alti (5 September 2026) |
| Aspect | east 80°ign-rge-alti (5 September 2026) |
| On the slope | 20% mid slope, on an even plane, 239 m drains onto itign-rge-alti (5 September 2026) |
Bedrock
- 27%Colluvium, mixed slope deposit about 0.1–0 million years
- 24%Campanian chalk of Reims 83.6–79 million years
- 49%Santonian chalk of Châlons 86–84 million years
Not a borehole: ordered by age, thickness by share of surface.
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, C, c5a.
brgm-bdcharm50 (4 September 2026)Sun and horizon
07:29
above the hill
19:26
behind the crest of the slope
11.9 h
sun at harvest
Grey: sun up, but behind the hill or the vineyard's own slope.
Around harvest the sun rises here at 07:29 above the hill and disappears at 19:26 behind the crest of the slope: 11.9 hours of direct sun on a clear day. The ridge reaches 5.6° above the horizon to the north-northwest.
| Irradiation | −0.5% versus flat land 1,013 kWh/m² from April to October, 46% 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 | 99.8% 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 and the caveat
| rise | set | sun | day | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 21 June | 05:50 | 21:27 | 15.6 h | 16.2 h |
| 20 September | 07:29 | 19:26 | 11.9 h | 12.3 h |
| 21 December | 08:36 | 16:25 | 7.8 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
109.5 ha flows past
| Cold air | 11 m above the hollow, cold air drains awayign-rge-alti (5 September 2026) |
|---|---|
| Cold air passing through | 109.5 ha a main drain, mean over the polygon 2.00 haign-rge-alti (5 September 2026) |
Planting
ENE-WSW
down the slope
1.18 m
between the rows
100%
vineyard in 1950
| Rows | ENE-WSW (66°) down the slope (14°), every 1.18 m, all rows parallelmeasured over 4.0 of 4.1 ha plantedign-bdortho (6 September 2026) |
|---|---|
| Vineyard in 1950 | 100%assessed over 4.2 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
- haut
- high, the upper part of a named plot. Almost always paired with a bas below it. Shape and position · Terroirium, Eigen telling over de namen in deze atlas (2026)
- blanc
- white, almost always about the colour of the soil or of the rock coming through. Soil and stone · Terroirium, Eigen telling over de namen in deze atlas (2026)
- voie
- road, often an old through route. Shape and position · Gérard Taverdet, Noms de lieux de Bourgogne (2007)
This is about the words, not about this plot: the same name can have arisen differently elsewhere.
Who owns land here
1.09 ha of 4.25 ha delimited is registered to a legal entity
- TAITTINGER COMPAGNIE COMMERCIALE ET VITICOLE CHAMPENOISE11%
- CHAMPAGNE LOUIS ROEDERER3%
- CHAMPAGNE DUVAL LEROY3%
- CHAMPAGNE PAUL DETHUNE3%
- LES GALIPES2%
- 2 other legal entities3%
- private individuals or unknown74%
- 0.47 ha TAITTINGER COMPAGNIE COMMERCIALE ET VITICOLE CHAMPENOISE SAS · wine business
- 0.14 ha CHAMPAGNE LOUIS ROEDERER SA · wine business · organic
- 0.14 ha CHAMPAGNE DUVAL LEROY SAS · wine business
- 0.12 ha L ESPERANCE SCI · land company
- 0.09 ha LES GALIPES SCI · land company · bare ownership
- 0.09 ha S C E V DELAVENNE PERE ET FILS SCEA · wine business · usufruct · organic
- 0.06 ha GROUPEMENT FONCIER AGRICOLE LE LIEN GFA · land company
Private individuals or unknown: 3.16 ha.
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
- Le Bas de la Guillotte Grand Cru · 150 m
- Les Blanches Voies Grand Cru · 200 m
- Le Bout dû Clos Grand Cru · 250 m
- La Guillotte Grand Cru · 250 m
- La Châtelaine Grand Cru · 300 m
- Les Champs Seaux Grand Cru · 350 m
- La Goisse Grand Cru · 350 m
- Les Cheminots Grand Cru · 400 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.