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Lieu-dit · Azy-sur-Marne

Le Bas des Rocheforts

Le Bas des Rocheforts is a lieu-dit in Azy-sur-Marne, Vallée de la Marne, Champagne, whose largest tier is champagne.

2.09 ha

delimited

98 m

elevation

11.3 h

sun at harvest

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

In figures

LevelChampagneinao-aoc-viticoles-bulk (not in this commune)
VillageAzy-sur-Marne
RegionVallée de la Marne, Champagne
Delimited2.09 hainao-aoc-viticoles-bulk (not in this commune) · cadastre-etalab (4 September 2026)
Planted2.05 hacadastre-etalab (4 September 2026) · ign-bdtopo-vigne (4 September 2026) · ign-rpg-2024 (5 September 2026)
Parcels18
Grape varietymeunier 64 %, pinot noir 32 %, chardonnay 4 % 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 39 named plots ranked champagne in Azy-sur-Marne, from high to low:

sun at harvest 26
elevation 18
slope 15
on the slope 18

Position

98 m

elevation

17.5%

steep

SW

southwest

mid-slope

even slope

Elevation98 m 90 to 105 mign-rge-alti (5 September 2026)
Slope17.5% 9.9°ign-rge-alti (5 September 2026)
Aspectsouthwest 216°ign-rge-alti (5 September 2026)
On the slope29% mid slope, on an even plane, 669 m drains onto itign-rge-alti (5 September 2026)

Bedrock

youngold
  • 83%Lutetian limestone, undifferentiated 47.8–⁠41.2 million years
  • 17%Ypresian sand, sandstone and conglomerate 56–⁠48 million years

Not a borehole: ordered by age, thickness by share of surface.

In the glass. Tends towards wines with firm acidity; the often-used term chalky structure is a tasting term, not a soil characteristic. Much depends on the thickness of the weathered layer: on shallow soils it quickly tips over into drought stress. (weak indication)

Limestone from the shallow, subtropical sea that covered the Paris Basin in the Middle Eocene, rich in shells and in large single-celled organisms (nummulites). In the centre of the basin this is the building-stone facies calcaire grossier; in Champagne the unit is developed thinner and more marly, in beds with intervening marl and sand layers. Middle Eocene, roughly 47.8 to 41.2 million years old.

For the vine. In this area the Lutetian lies in the middle of the Tertiary sequence of sands, clays and marls; the hard plateau edge is formed by the younger meulière de Brie, not by this limestone. Where the unit outcrops the soil is shallow and quickly dry, and a stony surface warms up faster by day than a fine soil, although the difference in ripening comes first and foremost from aspect and slope angle. The active lime content of the soil is high enough to make chlorosis a real risk; roots follow the fissures between the beds and can therefore still go quite deep.

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: e5, e4b.

brgm-bdcharm50 (4 September 2026)

Sun and horizon

08:10

above the hill

19:29

behind the hill

11.3 h

sun at harvest

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

Around harvest the sun rises here at 08:10 above the hill and disappears at 19:29 behind the hill: 11.3 hours of direct sun on a clear day. The ridge reaches 13.5° above the horizon to the north.

Irradiation+3.1% versus flat land 1,017 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 sky99.3% 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
risesetsunday
21 June06:5921:1414.3 h16.2 h
20 September08:1019:2911.3 h12.3 h
21 December08:5216:297.6 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), 34% 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

28 m

above the lowest point

drains far away

cold air

a gully

7.7 ha flows past

Cold air28 m high on the slope, cold air drains far awayign-rge-alti (5 September 2026)
Cold air passing through7.7 ha a gully, mean over the polygon 0.88 haign-rge-alti (5 September 2026)

Planting

NNE-SSW

down the slope

1.00 m

between the rows

100%

vineyard in 1950

RowsNNE-SSW (27°) down the slope (10°), every 1.00 m, all rows parallelmeasured over 2.0 of 2.0 ha plantedign-bdortho (6 September 2026)
Vineyard in 1950100%assessed over 1.8 ha on the 1950-1965 aerial photographign-photos-historiques-1950-1965 (6 September 2026)

The name

bas
low, the lower part of a named plot. Shape and position · Terroirium, Eigen telling over de namen in deze atlas (2026)
roche
rock, rock face. Soil and stone · 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

0.07 ha of 2.09 ha delimited is registered to a legal entity

  • EARL MARTEAUX GUILLAUME3%
  • private individuals or unknown97%

Private individuals or unknown: 2.02 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

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.