Lieu-dit · Écueil
La Montagne
La Montagne is a lieu-dit in Écueil, Montagne de Reims, Champagne, whose largest tier is premier cru.
12.4 ha
delimited
232 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 | Premier Cruinao-aoc-viticoles-bulk (not in this commune) |
|---|---|
| Village | Écueil |
| Region | Montagne de Reims, Champagne |
| Delimited | 12.4 hainao-aoc-viticoles-bulk (not in this commune) · cadastre-etalab (4 September 2026) |
| Planted | 12.2 hacadastre-etalab (4 September 2026) · ign-bdtopo-vigne (4 September 2026) · ign-rpg-2024 (5 September 2026) |
| Parcels | 113 |
| Grape variety | pinot noir 79 %, chardonnay 14 %, meunier 6 % 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 | 4%agence-bio-cartobio (c. 5 September 2026) · agence-bio-operateurs (5 September 2026) |
Place in the village
Among the 43 named plots ranked premier cru in Écueil, from high to low:
Position
232 m
elevation
22.1%
very steep
ENE
east-northeast
shoulder
convex ridge
| Elevation | 232 m 198 to 250 mign-rge-alti (5 September 2026) |
|---|---|
| Slope | 22.1% 12.5°ign-rge-alti (5 September 2026) |
| Aspect | east-northeast 71°ign-rge-alti (5 September 2026) |
| On the slope | 77% shoulder, on a convex ridge, 416 m drains onto itign-rge-alti (5 September 2026) |
Bedrock
- 27%Meulière clay of the Brie verwering van Oligoceen (circa 33 tot 28) tot Kwartair, ongedateerd
- 48%Bartonian sand and marl 38.5–37.7 million years
- 25%Saint-Ouen marl and limestone 38.5–37.7 million years
Not a borehole: ordered by age, thickness by share of surface.
In the glass. What grows here is more a consequence of the high, cool position on the slope and the late ripening than of the composition of the rock. No wine style can be attached to the formation itself. (weak indication)
An alternation of loose sand and grey-green marl from the uppermost Bartonian, roughly 38.5 to 37.7 million years ago, deposited in shallow sea and lagoons by a retreating coastline. In the ground this is an erratic package in which sandy and clayey layers alternate over short distances. It lies high on the slope, just below the plateau edge and above the marls of Saint-Ouen.
For the vine. The sand drains, the marl holds water, and it is precisely at the boundary between the two that small springs and wet patches form which stay cold and late in spring. The water store is reasonable, but rooting often runs into a marl layer. The unit only works where the slope is sufficient to carry the water away sideways.
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: e7a, 𝒜ℳ, e6b.
brgm-bdcharm50 (4 September 2026)Sun and horizon
07:29
above the flat horizon
17:49
behind the hill
10.3 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 07:29 above the flat horizon and disappears at 17:49 behind the hill: 10.3 hours of direct sun on a clear day. The ridge reaches 18.6° above the horizon to the west-southwest.
| Irradiation | −4.0% versus flat land 944 kWh/m² from April to October, 49% 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 | 99.4% 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 | 05:40 | 20:04 | 14.4 h | 16.2 h |
| 20 September | 07:29 | 17:49 | 10.3 h | 12.3 h |
| 21 December | 08:40 | 14:18 | 5.6 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), 38% of the far field is forest (BD Forêt), no buildings.
Air and cold
57 m
above the lowest point
drains far away
cold air
a combe
17.6 ha flows past
| Cold air | 57 m high on the slope, cold air drains far awayign-rge-alti (5 September 2026) |
|---|---|
| Cold air passing through | 17.6 ha a combe, mean over the polygon 0.31 haign-rge-alti (5 September 2026) |
Planting
ENE-WSW
down the slope
1.17 m
between the rows
61%
vineyard in 1950
| Rows | ENE-WSW (68°) down the slope (2°), every 1.17 m, varies by plotmeasured over 11.4 of 12.2 ha plantedign-bdortho (6 September 2026) |
|---|---|
| Vineyard in 1950 | 61% planted since: 4.56 haassessed over 11.8 ha on the 1950-1965 aerial photographign-photos-historiques-1950-1965 (6 September 2026) |
Climate over time
station REIMS-COURCY, 91 m, 15.1 km away
growing season, April to October: 1951-1980: 14.1 °C, 1991-2020: 15.0 °C
Huglin index: 1951-1980: 1,477, 1991-2020: 1,639
last spring frost: 1951-1980: day 118, 1991-2020: day 107
raw daily series, not corrected for station breaks
The name
- mont
- hill or mountain. In Champagne the Montagne is a wooded plateau edge, not a mountain. Relief · 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
5.29 ha of 12.4 ha delimited is registered to a legal entity
- COMMUNE D'ECUEIL36%
- BRUGNON-CHAUVET3%
- LES DOMAINES JEEPER3%
- ALLOUCHERY COURLEUX SA1%
- GFA POINTILLART-PERSEVAL<1%
- private individuals or unknown57%
- 4.47 ha COMMUNE D'ECUEIL COM · public
- 0.38 ha BRUGNON-CHAUVET GFA · land company
- 0.34 ha LES DOMAINES JEEPER SARL · other
- 0.10 ha ALLOUCHERY COURLEUX SA SAS · other
- 0.01 ha GFA POINTILLART-PERSEVAL GFA · land company
Private individuals or unknown: 7.10 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 Migerats Premier Cru · 150 m
- Sur le Mont Premier Cru · 200 m
- Derrière Moutier Premier Cru · 250 m
- Les Vouagnes Premier Cru · 300 m
- Derrière Moutier-Bas Premier Cru · 400 m
- Les Grandes Vignes Premier Cru · 400 m
- Les Prés Mousseux Premier Cru · 400 m
- Les Plantelles Premier Cru · 450 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.