Lieu-dit · Mercurey
Lès Rochelles
Lès Rochelles is a lieu-dit in Mercurey, Côte Chalonnaise, Burgundy, whose largest tier is village.
17.4 ha
delimited
283 m
elevation
10.5 h
sun at harvest
Open on the mapWith the boundary, the plots, the sun through the year and the bedrock.
In figures
| Level | Villageinao-aoc-viticoles-bulk (c. 4 September 2026) |
|---|---|
| Village | Mercurey |
| Region | Côte Chalonnaise, Burgundy |
| Delimited | 17.4 hainao-aoc-viticoles-bulk (c. 4 September 2026) · cadastre-etalab (4 September 2026) |
| Planted | 11.5 hacadastre-etalab (4 September 2026) · ign-bdtopo-vigne (5 September 2026) · ign-rpg-2024 (5 September 2026) |
| Parcels | 26 |
| Grape variety | pinot noir / chardonnay also permitted: pinot grisinao-cahiers-des-charges (7 September 2026) · dgddi-superficies-produits (7 September 2026) · franceagrimer-observatoire-viticulture (7 September 2026) |
| Organic | 23%agence-bio-cartobio (c. 5 September 2026) · agence-bio-operateurs (5 September 2026) |
Place in the village
Among the 81 named plots ranked village in Mercurey, from high to low:
Position
283 m
elevation
14.6%
steep
SE
southeast
mid-slope
concave fold
| Elevation | 283 m 253 to 337 mign-rge-alti (5 September 2026) |
|---|---|
| Daytime temperature | −0.13 °C by day, relative to the village centre at 268 m, ± 0.04 °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 | 14.6% 8.3°ign-rge-alti (5 September 2026) |
| Aspect | southeast 140°ign-rge-alti (5 September 2026) |
| On the slope | 33% mid slope, in a concave hollow, 193 m drains onto itign-rge-alti (5 September 2026) |
Bedrock
- 22%Modern alluvium of the rivers 0.012–0 million years
- 8%Oolitic limestone, marl and chailles (late Bathonian to Callovian) 165.5–161.5 million years
- 48%Oolithe blanche (Middle Bathonian) 167.5–166.5 million years
- 23%Bathonian oolite and fine-grained limestone 168–166 million years
Not a borehole: ordered by age, thickness by share of surface.
In the glass. Associated in the trade with finely built rather than powerful white wine. The light, reflective, fast-warming soil probably counts for at least as much in that as the composition of the rock. (weak indication)
Limestone consisting almost entirely of ooids, millimetre-sized lime spheres that grew as they rolled back and forth over a warm, shallow, agitated seabed, comparable to the sandbanks of the Bahamas today. The rock is pale, granular and fairly porous, and distinctly softer than the Comblanchien above. Middle Bathonian, about 167.5 to 166.5 million years old.
For the vine. Porous and permeable, so it drains well but also holds more water in its own pores than the dense lithographic limestones. It weathers to a pale, granular, strongly calcareous soil that warms quickly and keeps an airy structure. The active lime content is high, so chlorosis is the standard concern here and the choice of rootstock is decisive.
Occurs on the plateaus and upper slopes of the Côte and in the Hautes-Côtes, beneath the hard beds of the Upper Bathonian.
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: j3b, j3a, Fz, j3c-4.
brgm-bdcharm50 (4 September 2026)Sun and horizon
08:11
above the hill
18:43
behind the hill
10.5 h
sun at harvest
1.2 h
lost to the hill
Grey: sun up, but behind the hill or the vineyard's own slope.
Around harvest the sun rises here at 08:11 above the hill and disappears at 18:43 behind the hill: 10.5 hours of direct sun on a clear day. The ridge reaches 13.6° above the horizon to the north. The relief costs 0.7% of the irradiation from April to October, direct and diffuse together.
| Irradiation | +2.0% versus flat land 1,076 kWh/m² from April to October, 40% 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 | 97.5% 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 | 06:46 | 20:18 | 13.5 h | 15.9 h |
| 20 September | 08:11 | 18:43 | 10.5 h | 12.3 h |
| 21 December | 09:26 | 15:57 | 6.5 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
23 m
above the lowest point
drains away
cold air
a main drain
407.9 ha flows past
| Cold air | 23 m above the hollow, cold air drains awayign-rge-alti (5 September 2026) |
|---|---|
| Cold air passing through | 407.9 ha a main drain, mean over the polygon 10.68 haign-rge-alti (5 September 2026) |
Planting
SE-NW
down the slope
1.03 m
between the rows
53%
vineyard in 1950
| Rows | SE-NW (126°) down the slope (14°), every 1.03 m, varies by plotmeasured over 10.0 of 11.5 ha plantedign-bdortho (5 September 2026) |
|---|---|
| Vineyard in 1950 | 53% abandoned since: 0.24 ha, planted since: 3.72 haassessed over 10.1 ha on the 1950-1965 aerial photographign-photos-historiques-1950-1965 (6 September 2026) |
Climate over time
station LA ROCHEPOT, 417 m, 13.7 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
Who owns land here
9.51 ha of 17.4 ha delimited is registered to a legal entity
- DOMAINE MIA18%
- COMMUNE DE MERCUREY17%
- DOMAINE DES PERDRIX B ET C DEVILLARD15%
- CHATEAU DE SANTENAY3%
- DES MURGERS2%
- 1 other legal entity1%
- private individuals or unknown45%
- 3.07 ha DOMAINE MIA SCEA · wine business
- 2.92 ha COMMUNE DE MERCUREY COM · public
- 2.55 ha DU DOMAINE DE CHAMIREY GFA · land company
- 0.53 ha CHATEAU DE SANTENAY SCEA · wine business
- 0.27 ha DAVANTURE GFA · land company
- 0.17 ha ASSOCIATION FONCIERE DE MERCUREY AFR · other
Private individuals or unknown: 7.84 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
- Lès Bois de Lalier Village · 450 m
- Roc Blanc Village · 450 m
- La Chiquette Village · 500 m
- Lès Cheneaults Village · 650 m
- Derriere Sazenay Regional · 700 m
- En Poisot Regional · 750 m
- Le Bois Cassien Village · 800 m
- Lès Gravelles Regional · 800 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.