Lieu-dit · Crouttes-sur-Marne
Les Fortes Terres
Les Fortes Terres is a lieu-dit in Crouttes-sur-Marne, Vallée de la Marne, Champagne, whose largest tier is champagne.
3.04 ha
delimited
176 m
elevation
11.7 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 | Crouttes-sur-Marne |
| Region | Vallée de la Marne, Champagne |
| Delimited | 3.04 hainao-aoc-viticoles-bulk (not in this commune) · cadastre-etalab (4 September 2026) |
| Planted | 2.90 hacadastre-etalab (4 September 2026) · ign-bdtopo-vigne (4 September 2026) · ign-rpg-2024 (5 September 2026) |
| Parcels | 14 |
| Grape variety | meunier 55 %, chardonnay 28 %, pinot noir 17 % 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 | 0%agence-bio-cartobio (c. 5 September 2026) · agence-bio-operateurs (5 September 2026) |
Place in the village
Among the 44 named plots ranked champagne in Crouttes-sur-Marne, from high to low:
Position
176 m
elevation
10.1%
firm
SW
southwest
shoulder
convex ridge
| Elevation | 176 m 162 to 187 mign-rge-alti (5 September 2026) |
|---|---|
| Slope | 10.1% 5.8°ign-rge-alti (5 September 2026) |
| Aspect | southwest 217°ign-rge-alti (5 September 2026) |
| On the slope | 82% shoulder, on a convex ridge, 191 m drains onto itign-rge-alti (5 September 2026) |
Bedrock
- 41%Supra-gypsum marl, Upper Eocene about 36–34 million years (Priabonien)
- 59%Champigny limestone and gypsum marl 38–34 million years
Not a borehole: ordered by age, thickness by share of surface.
In the glass. The unit is too heterogeneous to attach a wine style to. What the wine does depends on which of the three layers actually lies beneath the parcel. (weak indication)
A package from the end of the Eocene (Ludian, now Priabonian), roughly 38 to 34 million years old. At the base lie the marine Marnes à Pholadomyes, above them the gypsum masses with gypsum-bearing marl, and in the south-east of the basin the freshwater limestone of Champigny as the lateral counterpart of that same gypsum series. The whole formed in a semi-enclosed, evaporating basin, somewhere between lake, lagoon and salt flat.
For the vine. The limestone beds dry out quickly, while the gypsum marl holds water and becomes heavy and plastic as soon as it is wet. Gypsum supplies calcium and sulphur but no active lime, so the chlorosis pressure on the gypsum marl is lower; that does not apply on the Champigny limestone, which is strongly calcareous. On flat sections such a subsoil stays cold for a long time in spring; slope and drainage are decisive here.
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: e7b, e7c.
brgm-bdcharm50 (4 September 2026)Sun and horizon
07:53
over the crest of the slope
19:33
behind the hill
11.7 h
sun at harvest
Grey: sun up, but behind the hill or the vineyard's own slope.
Around harvest the sun rises here at 07:53 over the crest of the slope and disappears at 19:33 behind the hill: 11.7 hours of direct sun on a clear day. The ridge reaches 4.3° above the horizon to the east-northeast.
| Irradiation | +2.1% versus flat land 1,012 kWh/m² from April to October, 46% 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 (not in this commune) · ign-bdforet-v2 (5 September 2026) · jrc-pvgis-sarah3 (10 September 2026) |
|---|
Three reference days and the caveat
| rise | set | sun | day | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 21 June | 06:26 | 21:32 | 15.1 h | 16.2 h |
| 20 September | 07:53 | 19:33 | 11.7 h | 12.3 h |
| 21 December | 08:42 | 16:50 | 8.1 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), 39% of the far field is forest (BD Forêt), no buildings.
Air and cold
38 m
above the lowest point
drains far away
cold air
a gully
6.6 ha flows past
| Cold air | 38 m high on the slope, cold air drains far awayign-rge-alti (5 September 2026) |
|---|---|
| Cold air passing through | 6.6 ha a gully, mean over the polygon 0.26 haign-rge-alti (5 September 2026) |
Planting
NE-SW
down the slope
1.04 m
between the rows
100%
vineyard in 1950
| Rows | NE-SW (34°) down the slope (2°), every 1.04 m, varies by plotmeasured over 2.8 of 2.9 ha plantedign-bdortho (6 September 2026) |
|---|---|
| Vineyard in 1950 | 100%assessed over 3.0 ha on the 1950-1965 aerial photographign-photos-historiques-1950-1965 (6 September 2026) |
The name
- terre
- soil, almost always with a colour or quality attached: Terres Rouges, Fortes Terres. Soil and stone · 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
0.13 ha of 3.04 ha delimited is registered to a legal entity
- COMMUNE DE CROUTTES SUR MARNE4%
- private individuals or unknown96%
- 0.13 ha COMMUNE DE CROUTTES SUR MARNE COM · public
Private individuals or unknown: 2.91 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 Rayons Champagne · 100 m
- Le Bois la Ville Champagne · 200 m
- Les Brezillones Champagne · 200 m
- Dessous la Fontaine de Montclère Champagne · 300 m
- La Ferme de Monclere Champagne · 350 m
- Les Champs Renards Champagne · 350 m
- Les Sablons Champagne · 450 m
- Les Drouennes Champagne · 550 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.