Lieu-dit · Aÿ-Champagne
La Ronce
La Ronce is a lieu-dit in Aÿ-Champagne, Montagne de Reims, Champagne, whose largest tier is premier cru.
10.8 ha
delimited
84 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
| Level | Premier Cruinao-aoc-viticoles-bulk (not in this commune) |
|---|---|
| Village | Aÿ-Champagne |
| Region | Montagne de Reims, Champagne |
| Delimited | 10.8 hainao-aoc-viticoles-bulk (not in this commune) · cadastre-etalab (4 September 2026) |
| Planted | 10.3 hacadastre-etalab (4 September 2026) · ign-bdtopo-vigne (4 September 2026) · ign-rpg-2024 (5 September 2026) |
| Parcels | 131 |
| Grape variety | pinot noir 68 %, chardonnay 29 %, meunier 3 % 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 | 15%agence-bio-cartobio (c. 5 September 2026) · agence-bio-operateurs (5 September 2026) |
Place in the village
Among the 95 named plots ranked premier cru in Aÿ-Champagne, from high to low:
Position
84 m
elevation
5.8%
gentle
SSW
south-southwest
foot
concave fold
| Elevation | 84 m 76 to 93 mign-rge-alti (5 September 2026) |
|---|---|
| Daytime temperature | +0.28 °C by day, relative to the village centre at 122 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) |
| Slope | 5.8% 3.3°ign-rge-alti (5 September 2026) |
| Aspect | south-southwest 200°ign-rge-alti (5 September 2026) |
| On the slope | 9% foot of the slope, in a concave hollow, 290 m drains onto itign-rge-alti (5 September 2026) |
Bedrock
- 48%Undifferentiated slope deposits Kwartair, hoofdzakelijk Weichselien (niet gedateerd)
- 22%Modern alluvium of the rivers 0.012–0 million years
- 28%Colluvium, mixed slope deposit about 0.1–0 million years
Not a borehole: ordered by age, thickness by share of surface.
In the glass. As a mixture this substrate says little in itself; origin, thickness and slope do the work. The wine can be expected to turn out fuller than on the bare subsoil next to it, but that has not been systematically established. (weak indication)
Not a rock but a collective name for material that slid down the slope through solifluction during the ice ages: a mixture of clay, silt, sand and stone rubble. The composition depends on what lies higher up; above chalk it is rich in lime and light in colour, below Tertiary sands and clays it is acidic and heavy instead. Solifluction itself is an ice-age process and is no longer active; what still moves today is surface wash and tillage erosion.
For the vine. This layer often lies on precisely the right slope positions and is deeper, looser and more fertile than the rock beneath it: more rootable ground, more water reserve, more vigour. The downside is that with a thick layer the root no longer reaches the parent rock, so the character of the subsoil drops out. Drainage is reasonable as long as the slope has enough gradient; on the flat foot of the slope the material stays cold and wet until late 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: SC, C, Fz.
brgm-bdcharm50 (4 September 2026)Sun and horizon
07:38
above the hill
19:40
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 07:38 above the hill and disappears at 19:40 behind the hill: 12.0 hours of direct sun on a clear day. The ridge reaches 7.1° above the horizon to the north.
| Irradiation | +1.5% versus flat land 1,012 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 | 06:03 | 21:25 | 15.4 h | 16.2 h |
| 20 September | 07:38 | 19:40 | 12.0 h | 12.3 h |
| 21 December | 08:43 | 16:40 | 8.0 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), 36% 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
78.1 ha flows past
| Cold air | 11 m above the hollow, cold air drains awayign-rge-alti (5 September 2026) |
|---|---|
| Cold air passing through | 78.1 ha a main drain, mean over the polygon 2.31 haign-rge-alti (5 September 2026) |
Planting
N-S
down the slope
1.15 m
between the rows
99%
vineyard in 1950
| Rows | N-S (4°) down the slope (16°), every 1.15 m, varies by plotmeasured over 9.1 of 10.3 ha plantedign-bdortho (6 September 2026) |
|---|---|
| Vineyard in 1950 | 99% planted since: 0.10 haassessed over 9.5 ha on the 1950-1965 aerial photographign-photos-historiques-1950-1965 (6 September 2026) |
Climate over time
station FAGNIERES-INRAE, 105 m, 23.5 km away
raw daily series, not corrected for station breaks
The name
- ronce
- bramble, a sign of neglected ground. Vegetation · 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
4.56 ha of 10.8 ha delimited is registered to a legal entity
- G H MUMM ET CIE21%
- VIGNOBLES DU CHATEAU11%
- M H C S3%
- CHAMPAGNE BOLLINGER3%
- SOCIETE AGRO-VITICOLE CHARBAUT2%
- 4 other legal entities3%
- private individuals or unknown58%
- 2.31 ha G H MUMM ET CIE SAS · other
- 1.13 ha VIGNOBLES DU CHATEAU SAS · wine business · organic
- 0.31 ha M H C S SA · other · emphyteusis 0.06 ha
- 0.30 ha CHAMPAGNE BOLLINGER SA · wine business · organic
- 0.20 ha DU BEAUREGARD GFA · land company
- 0.16 ha EARL CHAMPAGNE HEBRART EARL · wine business
- 0.06 ha LVMH MOET HENNESSY LOUIS VUITTON SE · other
- 0.05 ha SOCIETE CIVILE DES CRUS DE CHAMPAGNE SC · land company
- 0.04 ha EARL F A M A EARL · wine business
Private individuals or unknown: 6.20 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
- Cumaine Premier Cru · 250 m
- Les Carelles Premier Cru · 250 m
- Charmont Premier Cru · 300 m
- La Croix Trubert Premier Cru · 400 m
- Les Basses Clefs Premier Cru · 500 m
- Les Blangeois Premier Cru · 500 m
- Cauret Premier Cru · 500 m
- Champ Bouvart Grand Cru · 550 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.