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Lieu-dit · Balnot-sur-Laignes

Le Cheminot

Le Cheminot is a lieu-dit in Balnot-sur-Laignes, Côte des Bar, Champagne, whose largest tier is champagne.

7.71 ha

delimited

228 m

elevation

11.5 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)
VillageBalnot-sur-Laignes
RegionCôte des Bar, Champagne
Delimited7.71 hainao-aoc-viticoles-bulk (not in this commune) · cadastre-etalab (4 September 2026)
Planted7.48 hacadastre-etalab (4 September 2026) · ign-bdtopo-vigne (4 September 2026) · ign-rpg-2024 (5 September 2026)
Parcels22
Grape varietypinot noir 91 %, chardonnay 7 % 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)
Organic2%agence-bio-cartobio (c. 5 September 2026) · agence-bio-operateurs (5 September 2026)

Place in the village

Among the 22 named plots ranked champagne in Balnot-sur-Laignes, from high to low:

sun at harvest 2
elevation 8
slope 6
on the slope 4

Position

228 m

elevation

19.0%

steep

SSE

south-southeast

upper

concave fold

Elevation228 m 193 to 257 mign-rge-alti (5 September 2026)
Daytime temperature−0.03 °C by day, relative to the village centre at 221 m, ± 0.02 °Cmeteo-france-quotidiennes (6 September 2026) · meteo-france-postes (6 September 2026) · meteo-france-lsh (6 September 2026) · ign-rge-alti (5 September 2026)
Slope19.0% 10.8°ign-rge-alti (5 September 2026)
Aspectsouth-southeast 152°ign-rge-alti (5 September 2026)
On the slope48% upper slope, in a concave hollow, 230 m drains onto itign-rge-alti (5 September 2026)

Bedrock

  • 100%Kimmeridgian marl and limestone 155–⁠149 million years

In the glass. Tends towards taut, far from lush white wine with firm acidity. The word salty belongs to the traditional tasting vocabulary for Chablis and does not rest on a demonstrable link with the rock; slope, exposure and soil depth are at least as decisive here.

An alternation of grey marl and harder, shell-rich limestone beds, deposited in a quiet, shallow sea at most a few tens of metres deep. The marl is full of small oysters of the genus Exogyra, the identifying mark of this layer in the field. Upper Jurassic, Kimmeridgian, roughly 155 to 149 million years old.

For the vine. The marl holds water, the limestone beds within it provide drainage and anchorage; together that gives a soil that keeps supplying moisture for a long time in a dry summer without the roots becoming waterlogged in spring, provided there is a slope beneath it. On flat ground the same layer becomes cold and wet. The active lime content is usually high, so chlorosis-resistant rootstocks are needed as a rule, and roots penetrate the soft marl relatively easily.

Characteristic of the slopes of Chablis (grand cru and premier cru) and further of Tonnerre, Épineuil, Irancy and Saint-Bris.

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: j6b-cN.

brgm-bdcharm50 (4 September 2026)

Sun and horizon

07:38

above the hill

19:08

behind the hill

11.5 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 19:08 behind the hill: 11.5 hours of direct sun on a clear day. The ridge reaches 13.9° above the horizon to the northwest.

Irradiation+3.6% versus flat land 1,029 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 sky99.6% 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 and the caveat
risesetsunday
21 June06:0120:1614.3 h16.1 h
20 September07:3819:0811.5 h12.3 h
21 December08:3916:237.7 h8.4 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), 40% 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

43 m

above the lowest point

drains far away

cold air

little inflow

1.9 ha flows past

Cold air43 m high on the slope, cold air drains far awayign-rge-alti (5 September 2026)
Cold air passing through1.9 ha little inflow, mean over the polygon 0.20 haign-rge-alti (5 September 2026)

Planting

SSE-NNW

down the slope

1.08 m

between the rows

100%

vineyard in 1950

RowsSSE-NNW (158°) down the slope (6°), every 1.08 m, slightly fannedmeasured over 7.4 of 7.5 ha plantedign-bdortho (6 September 2026)
Vineyard in 1950100%assessed over 6.6 ha on the 1950-1965 aerial photographign-photos-historiques-1950-1965 (6 September 2026)

Climate over time

19802000202012°14°16°18°

station CRUZY_SAPC, 291 m, 22.7 km away

raw daily series, not corrected for station breaks

Who owns land here

2.38 ha of 7.71 ha delimited is registered to a legal entity

  • CHAMPAGNE GREMILLET13%
  • DOMAINE ALEXANDRE BONNET10%
  • COMMUNE DE BALNOT SUR LAIGNES2%
  • ASS FONCIERE DE BALNOT SUR LAIGNES2%
  • GFV DU CHEMINOT2%
  • 1 other legal entity1%
  • private individuals or unknown69%

Private individuals or unknown: 5.33 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.