Lieu-dit · Chouilly
Le Marais
Le Marais is a lieu-dit in Chouilly, Côte des Blancs, Champagne, whose largest tier is grand cru.
7.14 ha
delimited
193 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 | Grand Cruinao-aoc-viticoles-bulk (not in this commune) |
|---|---|
| Village | Chouilly |
| Region | Côte des Blancs, Champagne |
| Delimited | 7.14 hainao-aoc-viticoles-bulk (not in this commune) · cadastre-etalab (4 September 2026) |
| Planted | 6.90 hacadastre-etalab (4 September 2026) · ign-bdtopo-vigne (4 September 2026) · ign-rpg-2024 (5 September 2026) |
| Parcels | 149 |
| Grape variety | chardonnay 100 % 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 | 6%agence-bio-cartobio (c. 5 September 2026) · agence-bio-operateurs (5 September 2026) |
Place in the village
Among the 75 named plots ranked grand cru in Chouilly, from high to low:
Position
193 m
elevation
7.4%
firm
SW
southwest
upper
even slope
| Elevation | 193 m 183 to 204 mign-rge-alti (5 September 2026) |
|---|---|
| Daytime temperature | −0.46 °C by day, relative to the village centre at 136 m, ± 0.16 °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 | 7.4% 4.3°ign-rge-alti (5 September 2026) |
| Aspect | southwest 221°ign-rge-alti (5 September 2026) |
| On the slope | 60% upper slope, on an even plane, 608 m drains onto itign-rge-alti (5 September 2026) |
Bedrock
- 51%Palaeocene travertine of Sézanne 59–56 million years
- 48%Campanian chalk with belemnites 78–72 million years
Not a borehole: ordered by age, thickness by share of surface.
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, c5b.
brgm-bdcharm50 (4 September 2026)Sun and horizon
08:21
above the hill
19:44
behind the hill
11.4 h
sun at harvest
0.6 h
lost to the hill
Grey: sun up, behind the hill or its own slope.
Around harvest the sun rises here at 08:21 above the hill and disappears at 19:44 behind the hill: 11.4 hours of direct sun on a clear day. The ridge reaches 15.8° above the horizon to the north-northeast. The relief costs 0.5% of the irradiation from April to October, direct and diffuse together.
| Irradiation | +1.1% versus flat land 1,022 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 | 98.6% 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 | 07:17 | 21:45 | 14.5 h | 16.2 h |
| 20 September | 08:21 | 19:44 | 11.4 h | 12.3 h |
| 21 December | 09:26 | 16:30 | 7.1 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), 28% of the far field is forest (BD Forêt), no buildings.
The irradiation loss does include clouds: the average of 2005 to 2023 (PVGIS-SARAH3, EU JRC), not any particular year.
Air and cold
18 m
above the lowest point
drains away
cold air
a gully
9.3 ha flows past
| Cold air | 18 m above the hollow, cold air drains awayign-rge-alti (5 September 2026) |
|---|---|
| Cold air passing through | 9.3 ha a gully, mean over the polygon 0.50 haign-rge-alti (5 September 2026) |
Planting
NE-SW
down the slope
1.15 m
between the rows
100%
vineyard in 1950
| Rows | NE-SW (46°) down the slope (5°), every 1.15 m, all rows parallelmeasured over 5.7 of 6.9 ha plantedign-bdortho (6 September 2026) |
|---|---|
| Vineyard in 1950 | 100%assessed over 5.6 ha on the 1950-1965 aerial photographign-photos-historiques-1950-1965 (6 September 2026) |
Climate over time
station FAGNIERES-INRAE, 105 m, 23.7 km away
raw daily series, not corrected for station breaks
The name
- marais
- marsh or pond. Water · 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
2.26 ha of 7.14 ha delimited is registered to a legal entity
- COMMUNE DE CHOUILLY9%
- CHAMPAGNE PERRIER-JOUET5%
- G H MUMM ET CIE4%
- CHAMPAGNE BILLECART-SALMON3%
- FREREJEAN DASSAULT PATRIMOINE3%
- 9 other legal entities8%
- private individuals or unknown68%
- 0.62 ha COMMUNE DE CHOUILLY COM · public
- 0.36 ha CHAMPAGNE PERRIER-JOUET SCOM · wine business
- 0.28 ha G H MUMM ET CIE SAS · other
- 0.21 ha CHAMPAGNE BILLECART-SALMON SA · wine business · bare ownership
- 0.18 ha FREREJEAN DASSAULT PATRIMOINE GFA · land company
- 0.12 ha E A R L L'INFLUENCE DU TERROIR SC · land company · usufruct · organic
- 0.11 ha GFA DU VIGNOBLE VIGNIER LEBRUN GFA · land company
- 0.09 ha VOIRIN ALICE SARL · other · usufruct
- 0.08 ha GFV SAINT VINCENT LES PARTITIONS CRAYEUSES GFA · land company
- 0.07 ha SCI VINEOPORUS SCI · land company
- 0.05 ha M H C S SA · other · emphyteusis
- 0.05 ha SOCIETE VITICOLE DE REIMS SAS · wine business · organic
Show 2 more
- 0.04 ha GROUPEMENT FONCIER AGRICOLE LES LOUTRETS GFA · land company
- 0.01 ha VAZART COQUART GFA · land company
Private individuals or unknown: 4.88 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 Herbins Grand Cru · 250 m
- Le Haut des Herbins Grand Cru · 300 m
- Le Bas des Culs Chauds Grand Cru · 350 m
- L E S l O N G U E S V E R G E S Grand Cru · 400 m
- Bigotte Grand Cru · 700 m
- L a C a V E Grand Cru · 750 m
- Les Friches des Grandes Terres Grand Cru · 750 m
- Les Vignes de Saran Grand Cru · 750 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.