Lieu-dit · Bethon
Le Bas de Froid-Cul
Le Bas de Froid-Cul is a lieu-dit in Bethon, Côte de Sézanne, Champagne, whose largest tier is champagne.
5.72 ha
delimited
168 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 | Champagneinao-aoc-viticoles-bulk (not in this commune) |
|---|---|
| Village | Bethon |
| Region | Côte de Sézanne, Champagne |
| Delimited | 5.72 hainao-aoc-viticoles-bulk (not in this commune) · cadastre-etalab (4 September 2026) |
| Planted | 5.44 hacadastre-etalab (4 September 2026) · ign-bdtopo-vigne (4 September 2026) · ign-rpg-2024 (5 September 2026) |
| Parcels | 10 |
| Grape variety | chardonnay 92 %, pinot noir 8 % 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 | 35%agence-bio-cartobio (c. 5 September 2026) · agence-bio-operateurs (5 September 2026) |
Place in the village
Among the 42 named plots ranked champagne in Bethon, from high to low:
Position
168 m
elevation
14.8%
steep
S
south
upper
even slope
| Elevation | 168 m 152 to 185 mign-rge-alti (5 September 2026) |
|---|---|
| Daytime temperature | −0.18 °C by day, relative to the village centre at 146 m, ± 0.07 °Cmeteo-france-quotidiennes (18 September 2026) · meteo-france-postes (6 September 2026) · meteo-france-lsh (6 September 2026) · ign-rge-alti (5 September 2026) |
| Slope | 14.8% 8.4°ign-rge-alti (5 September 2026) |
| Aspect | south 183°ign-rge-alti (5 September 2026) |
| On the slope | 67% upper slope, on an even plane, 126 m drains onto itign-rge-alti (5 September 2026) |
Bedrock
- 58%Slope scree and landslips Laat-Pleistoceen tot heden, plaatselijk nog actief
- 27%Ypresian sand, sandstone and plastic clay 56–48 million years
- 15%Palaeocene travertine of Sézanne 59–56 million years
Not a borehole: ordered by age, thickness by share of surface.
In the glass. On its own, nothing meaningful can be said about the wine from this substrate. It is a mixture, and slope, aspect and soil depth are the factors that really matter. (weak indication)
A collective term and not a formation: loose rock debris on steep slopes, together with zones where whole bodies of ground have slipped. The material is young and consists of whatever outcrops higher up the slope, from limestone flakes and rubble to lumps of marl and clay. Scree formation and slipping are, moreover, still going on, so the unit is locally in motion.
For the vine. Generally stony and well drained, with a depth that can vary greatly within a single plot. Where marl or clay has come down with it, the deposit holds more water and becomes cooler and heavier. Instability and erosion are the practical problem here, so planting, terracing and soil cultivation determine more than the mapping does.
Occurs on the steepest flanks of the Côte and of the combes, where the limestone edge above the vineyard breaks apart.
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: E, e4, e3.
brgm-bdcharm50 (4 September 2026)Sun and horizon
07:37
above the hill
19:38
behind the hill
12.0 h
sun at harvest
Grey: sun up, behind the hill or its own slope.
Around harvest the sun rises here at 07:37 above the hill and disappears at 19:38 behind the hill: 12.0 hours of direct sun on a clear day. The ridge reaches 15.6° above the horizon to the north.
| Irradiation | +3.7% versus flat land 1,055 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) |
|---|---|
| Open sky | 99.6% 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, the caveat
| rise | set | sun | day | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 21 June | 06:22 | 21:01 | 14.7 h | 16.1 h |
| 20 September | 07:37 | 19:38 | 12.0 h | 12.3 h |
| 21 December | 08:37 | 16:52 | 8.3 h | 8.3 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), 29% of the far field is forest (BD Forêt), no buildings.
Air and cold
33 m
above the lowest point
drains far away
cold air
little inflow
1.7 ha flows past
| Cold air | 33 m high on the slope, cold air drains far awayign-rge-alti (5 September 2026) |
|---|---|
| Cold air passing through | 1.7 ha little inflow, mean over the polygon 0.15 haign-rge-alti (5 September 2026) |
Planting
N-S
down the slope
1.10 m
between the rows
99%
vineyard in 1950
| Rows | N-S (4°) down the slope (1°), every 1.10 m, all rows parallelmeasured over 5.4 of 5.4 ha plantedign-bdortho (6 September 2026) |
|---|---|
| Vineyard in 1950 | 99% planted since: 0.07 haassessed over 5.7 ha on the 1950-1965 aerial photographign-photos-historiques-1950-1965 (6 September 2026) |
Climate over time
station ROMILLY, 77 m, 15.2 km away
growing season, April to October: 1951-1980: 14.2 °C, 1991-2020: 15.4 °C
Huglin index: 1951-1980: 1,542, 1991-2020: 1,773
last spring frost: 1951-1980: day 124, 1991-2020: day 115
series homogenised through 2022
The name
- bas
- low, the lower part of a named plot. Shape and position · Terroirium, Eigen telling over de namen in deze atlas (2026)
- froid
- cold, about a spot that warms late or where cold air lingers. Shape and position · Terroirium, Eigen telling over de namen in deze atlas (2026)
- cul
- the dead end of a valley or 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
0.03 ha of 5.72 ha delimited is registered to a legal entity
- GROUPEMENT FONCIER AGRICOLE GRUET GUERIN<1%
- private individuals or unknown100%
- 0.03 ha GROUPEMENT FONCIER AGRICOLE GRUET GUERIN AUPM · other
Private individuals or unknown: 5.69 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
- Les Vignes de Voglonnière Champagne · 250 m
- Frécul Champagne · 250 m
- La Pierre a l'Âne Champagne · 300 m
- Voglonnière Champagne · 300 m
- Les Hauts Chaillois Champagne · 450 m
- Le Bas de la Chapelle Champagne · 500 m
- La Chapelle Champagne · 600 m
- Les Bas Chaillois Champagne · 600 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.