Lieu-dit · Blancs-Coteaux
Le Moulin a Vent
Le Moulin a Vent is a lieu-dit in Blancs-Coteaux, Côte des Blancs, Champagne, whose largest tier is premier cru.
9.25 ha
delimited
198 m
elevation
11.4 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 | Blancs-Coteaux |
| Region | Côte des Blancs, Champagne |
| Delimited | 9.25 hainao-aoc-viticoles-bulk (not in this commune) · cadastre-etalab (4 September 2026) |
| Planted | 8.69 hacadastre-etalab (4 September 2026) · ign-bdtopo-vigne (4 September 2026) · ign-rpg-2024 (5 September 2026) |
| Parcels | 52 |
| Grape variety | chardonnay 96 %, pinot noir 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) |
| Organic | 2%agence-bio-cartobio (c. 5 September 2026) · agence-bio-operateurs (5 September 2026) |
Place in the village
Among the 94 named plots ranked premier cru in Blancs-Coteaux, from high to low:
Position
198 m
elevation
9.4%
firm
SE
southeast
upper
convex ridge
| Elevation | 198 m 179 to 209 mign-rge-alti (5 September 2026) |
|---|---|
| Daytime temperature | −0.46 °C by day, relative to the village centre at 141 m, ± 0.15 °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 | 9.4% 5.4°ign-rge-alti (5 September 2026) |
| Aspect | southeast 127°ign-rge-alti (5 September 2026) |
| On the slope | 69% upper slope, on a convex ridge, 170 m drains onto itign-rge-alti (5 September 2026) |
Bedrock
- 100%Palaeocene travertine of Sézanne 59–56 million years
In the glass. The unit is too heterogeneous to hang a flavour profile on. In the Sézannais the southerly aspect and the early ripening presumably weigh more heavily than the rock. (weak indication)
A mixed unit: calcareous tufa or travertine precipitated at springs and streams whose water had been saturated with lime by the chalk, together with gravelly sands, conglomerate and limestone. The rock is light, porous and full of cavities, and at the Montagne des Grottes it has enclosed a well-known plant flora from the Palaeocene, roughly 59 to 56 million years old. Because several rocks are grouped in one map unit, its character differs greatly from place to place.
For the vine. Where the travertine dominates the soil is light, porous and rich in lime, warms up quickly and drains well. Where the gravel and the conglomerate dominate the drainage is even sharper and the water store smaller. Assess this unit parcel by parcel; the map colour says less here than the stones lying in the row.
Known from the Sézannais around Sézanne and the Montagne des Grottes.
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: e3.
brgm-bdcharm50 (4 September 2026)Sun and horizon
07:30
above the hill
18:54
behind the hill
11.4 h
sun at harvest
Grey: sun up, but behind the hill or the vineyard's own slope.
Around harvest the sun rises here at 07:30 above the hill and disappears at 18:54 behind the hill: 11.4 hours of direct sun on a clear day. The ridge reaches 9.6° above the horizon to the west.
| Irradiation | +1.3% versus flat land 1,021 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 sky | 99.5% 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 | 05:44 | 20:45 | 15.0 h | 16.2 h |
| 20 September | 07:30 | 18:54 | 11.4 h | 12.3 h |
| 21 December | 08:37 | 15:51 | 7.2 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), 25% of the far field is forest (BD Forêt), no buildings.
Air and cold
51 m
above the lowest point
drains far away
cold air
little inflow
1.2 ha flows past
| Cold air | 51 m high on the slope, cold air drains far awayign-rge-alti (5 September 2026) |
|---|---|
| Cold air passing through | 1.2 ha little inflow, mean over the polygon 0.11 haign-rge-alti (5 September 2026) |
Planting
SE-NW
down the slope
1.15 m
between the rows
84%
vineyard in 1950
| Rows | SE-NW (127°) down the slope (0°), every 1.15 m, varies by plotmeasured over 8.1 of 8.7 ha plantedign-bdortho (6 September 2026) |
|---|---|
| Vineyard in 1950 | 84% planted since: 1.23 haassessed over 7.7 ha on the 1950-1965 aerial photographign-photos-historiques-1950-1965 (6 September 2026) |
Climate over time
station FAGNIERES-INRAE, 105 m, 22.2 km away
raw daily series, not corrected for station breaks
The name
- moulin
- mill, usually a watermill on a brook or a windmill on a ridge. Work and use · Gérard Taverdet, Noms de lieux de Bourgogne (2007)
- vent
- wind. Froid-Vent is a place where it blows and is cold. 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
0.38 ha of 9.25 ha delimited is registered to a legal entity
- SOCIETE CIVILE D'EXPLOITATION FOURNY2%
- CHAMPAGNE LARMANDIER BERNIER2%
- private individuals or unknown96%
- 0.20 ha SOCIETE CIVILE D'EXPLOITATION FOURNY SC · land company
- 0.19 ha CHAMPAGNE LARMANDIER BERNIER EARL · wine business · organic
Private individuals or unknown: 8.87 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 Haut des Chevreux Premier Cru · 150 m
- Lès Chevreux Premier Cru · 250 m
- Lès Noires Vaches Premier Cru · 300 m
- Le Grand Mont Premier Cru · 350 m
- Le Bas du Mont d'Épernay Premier Cru · 350 m
- La Pièce des Noires Vaches Premier Cru · 350 m
- Lès Amandiers Premier Cru · 400 m
- Le Petit Mont Premier Cru · 500 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.