Lieu-dit · Couches
Le Château
Le Château is a lieu-dit in Couches, Côte Chalonnaise, Burgundy, whose largest tier is regional.
10.6 ha
delimited
298 m
elevation
10.3 h
sun at harvest
Open on the mapWith the boundary, the plots, the sun through the year and the bedrock.
In figures
| Level | Regionalinao-aoc-viticoles-bulk (c. 4 September 2026) |
|---|---|
| Village | Couches |
| Region | Côte Chalonnaise, Burgundy |
| Delimited | 10.6 hainao-aoc-viticoles-bulk (c. 4 September 2026) · cadastre-etalab (4 September 2026) |
| Planted | 1.56 hacadastre-etalab (4 September 2026) · ign-bdtopo-vigne (5 September 2026) · ign-rpg-2024 (5 September 2026) |
| Parcels | 41 |
| Grape variety | pinot noir, gamay also permitted: chardonnay, pinot blanc, pinot grisinao-cahiers-des-charges (7 September 2026) · dgddi-superficies-produits (7 September 2026) · franceagrimer-observatoire-viticulture (7 September 2026) |
| Organic | 0%agence-bio-cartobio (c. 5 September 2026) · agence-bio-operateurs (5 September 2026) |
Place in the village
Among the 22 named plots ranked regional in Couches, from high to low:
Position
298 m
elevation
26.3%
very steep
ENE
east-northeast
mid-slope
convex ridge
| Elevation | 298 m 257 to 327 mign-rge-alti (5 September 2026) |
|---|---|
| Daytime temperature | +0.38 °C by day, relative to the village centre at 345 m, ± 0.06 °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 | 26.3% 14.8°ign-rge-alti (5 September 2026) |
| Aspect | east-northeast 71°ign-rge-alti (5 September 2026) |
| On the slope | 27% mid slope, on a convex ridge, 83 m drains onto itign-rge-alti (5 September 2026) |
Bedrock
- 99%Porphyritic biotite granite of Luzy about 335–320 million years (Boven-Viseen tot Namurien)
In the glass. In the Couchois and around Dezize and Sampigny ground that gives supple, fruity red wine rather than the firm Pinot of the limestone. Compare with the granite wines of the Beaujolais, not with Santenay.
Coarse-grained, light-coloured granite with large feldspar crystals, biotite, often muscovite and locally cordierite or tourmaline, intruded in the Upper Viséan and Namurian during the Variscan orogeny. Forms the crystalline basement of the Couchois and the southern Maranges, where the Jurassic cover is absent.
For the vine. Weathers to coarse, acid to neutral granite sand (gore) with silt: lime-poor, free-draining, quick to warm, poor in nutrients and prone to erosion. No chlorosis; drought stress, however, on shallow parts. A different soil type from the limestone of the Côte beside it.
Couchois and edge of the Maranges: Couches, Dracy-lès-Couches, Saint-Maurice-lès-Couches, Saint-Sernin-du-Plain, Saint-Pierre-de-Varennes, Dezize-lès-Maranges, Sampigny-lès-Maranges, Paris-l'Hôpital.
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: h2-3pγ2.
brgm-bdcharm50 (4 September 2026)Sun and horizon
07:54
above the hill
18:15
behind the crest of the slope
10.3 h
sun at harvest
Grey: sun up, behind the hill or its own slope.
Around harvest the sun rises here at 07:54 above the hill and disappears at 18:15 behind the crest of the slope: 10.3 hours of direct sun on a clear day. The ridge reaches 13.6° above the horizon to the southwest. The relief costs 0.6% of the irradiation from April to October, direct and diffuse together.
| Irradiation | −5.2% versus flat land 995 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 | 97.6% 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 | 06:20 | 20:20 | 14.0 h | 15.9 h |
| 20 September | 07:54 | 18:15 | 10.3 h | 12.3 h |
| 21 December | 09:36 | 15:13 | 5.6 h | 8.5 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), 33% 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
39 m
above the lowest point
drains far away
cold air
a main drain
118.7 ha flows past
| Cold air | 39 m high on the slope, cold air drains far awayign-rge-alti (5 September 2026) |
|---|---|
| Cold air passing through | 118.7 ha a main drain, mean over the polygon 0.29 haign-rge-alti (5 September 2026) |
Planting
SSE-NNW
across the slope
1.01 m
between the rows
31%
vineyard in 1950
| Rows | SSE-NNW (149°) across the slope (78°), every 1.01 m, all rows parallelmeasured over 0.4 of 1.6 ha plantedign-bdortho (5 September 2026) |
|---|---|
| Vineyard in 1950 | 31% abandoned since: 1.54 haassessed over 7.4 ha on the 1950-1965 aerial photographign-photos-historiques-1950-1965 (6 September 2026) |
Climate over time
station LA ROCHEPOT, 417 m, 12.3 km away
growing season, April to October: 1951-1980: 14.1 °C, 1991-2020: 15.2 °C
Huglin index: 1951-1980: 1,528, 1991-2020: 1,726
last spring frost: 1951-1980: day 115, 1991-2020: day 108
raw daily series, not corrected for station breaks
The name
- chateau
- castle or tower, as owner or as adjoining landmark. Ownership and saints · 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
9.01 ha of 10.6 ha delimited is registered to a legal entity
- DES CHAMPS PHILIPPE83%
- COMMUNE DE COUCHES2%
- INDIVISAIRES DE LA COUR COMMUNE AH 118 COMMUNE DE COUCHES<1%
- private individuals or unknown15%
- 8.81 ha DES CHAMPS PHILIPPE SCI · land company
- 0.17 ha COMMUNE DE COUCHES COM · public
- 0.03 ha INDIVISAIRES DE LA COUR COMMUNE AH 118 COMMUNE DE COUCHES AUPM · other
Private individuals or unknown: 1.56 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
- Sur lès Moulins Regional · 400 m
- Lès Prés Nardin Regional · 550 m
- Lès Gaudiers Regional · 600 m
- Lès Chante-Renards Regional · 800 m
- Lès Plenias Regional · 850 m
- Lès Bois de Bouhy Regional · 950 m
- Champs des Oies Regional · 1.0 km
- Lès Gorges Regional · 1.0 km
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.