Lieu-dit · Meursault
Les Gouttes d'Or
Les Gouttes d'Or is a lieu-dit in Meursault, Côte de Beaune, Burgundy, whose largest tier is premier cru. It lies within the official cru Les Gouttes d'Or.
5.33 ha
delimited
251 m
elevation
11.3 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 (c. 4 September 2026) |
|---|---|
| Official cru | Les Gouttes d'Or |
| Village | Meursault |
| Region | Côte de Beaune, Burgundy |
| Delimited | 5.33 hainao-aoc-viticoles-bulk (c. 4 September 2026) · cadastre-etalab (4 September 2026) |
| Planted | 5.00 hacadastre-etalab (4 September 2026) · ign-bdtopo-vigne (5 September 2026) · ign-rpg-2024 (5 September 2026) |
| Parcels | 27 |
| Grape variety | chardonnay also permitted: pinot blanc, aligoté, melon, sacyinao-cahiers-des-charges (7 September 2026) · dgddi-superficies-produits (7 September 2026) · franceagrimer-observatoire-viticulture (7 September 2026) |
| Organic | 19%agence-bio-cartobio (c. 5 September 2026) · agence-bio-operateurs (5 September 2026) |
Place in the village
Among the 23 named plots ranked premier cru in Meursault, from high to low:
Position
251 m
elevation
11.9%
firm
ESE
east-southeast
foot
convex ridge
| Elevation | 251 m 238 to 265 mign-rge-alti (5 September 2026) |
|---|---|
| Daytime temperature | −0.01 °C by day, relative to the village centre at 250 m, ± 0.01 °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 | 11.9% 6.8°ign-rge-alti (5 September 2026) |
| Aspect | east-southeast 104°ign-rge-alti (5 September 2026) |
| On the slope | 15% foot of the slope, on a convex ridge, 403 m drains onto itign-rge-alti (5 September 2026) |
Bedrock
- 3%Made ground and disturbed soil recent, hooguit enkele eeuwen
- 12%Stratified frost scree and colluvium 0.115–0.012 million years (laatste ijstijd)
- 85%Bathonian limestone (Comblanchien and Nod) 168–165 million years
Not a borehole: ordered by age, thickness by share of surface.
In the glass. Tends towards taut, firmly built wine that develops slowly. That effect works mainly through soil depth and drought stress and not through a direct transfer from stone to glass.
Shell debris, lime gravel, ooids and oncoids, small knobbly algal balls, cemented into a hard limestone on a warm and shallow platform. This sequence includes the Pierre de Comblanchien from the quarries of the Côte de Nuits and the Pierre de Nod from the Châtillonnais. The Comblanchien recurs under more than one map code, depending on how the map sheet has subdivided the sequence; Bathonian, about 168 to 165 million years old.
For the vine. Hard rock of low porosity that gives a thin, distinctly stony soil with a small water reserve, in which roots follow joints and bedding rather than the stone itself. The stones warm quickly; how much reflected light and heat actually reaches the bunch depends on row orientation and canopy management. The active lime content is high, and on flat ground without a colluvial cover there is simply too little soil.
The quarries of Comblanchien and Corgoloin on the southern edge of the Côte de Nuits; the Pierre de Nod is named after Nod-sur-Seine in the Châtillonnais.
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: j3, GP, X.
brgm-bdcharm50 (c. 4 September 2026)Sun and horizon
07:27
above the hill
18:44
behind the hill
11.3 h
sun at harvest
Grey: sun up, but behind the hill or the vineyard's own slope.
Around harvest the sun rises here at 07:27 above the hill and disappears at 18:44 behind the hill: 11.3 hours of direct sun on a clear day. The ridge reaches 10.3° above the horizon to the west.
| Irradiation | +0.3% versus flat land 1,051 kWh/m² from April to October, 43% 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) |
|---|
Three reference days and the caveat
| rise | set | sun | day | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 21 June | 05:48 | 20:32 | 14.7 h | 15.9 h |
| 20 September | 07:27 | 18:44 | 11.3 h | 12.3 h |
| 21 December | 08:25 | 16:06 | 7.7 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), 32% of the far field is forest (BD Forêt), no buildings.
Air and cold
17 m
above the lowest point
drains away
cold air
a combe
21.6 ha flows past
| Cold air | 17 m above the hollow, cold air drains awayign-rge-alti (5 September 2026) |
|---|---|
| Cold air passing through | 21.6 ha a combe, mean over the polygon 1.18 haign-rge-alti (5 September 2026) |
Planting
ESE-WNW
down the slope
1.02 m
between the rows
100%
vineyard in 1950
| Rows | ESE-WNW (103°) down the slope (1°), every 1.02 m, all rows parallelmeasured over 4.7 of 5.0 ha plantedign-bdortho (5 September 2026) |
|---|---|
| Vineyard in 1950 | 100% abandoned since: 0.12 haassessed over 5.3 ha on the 1950-1965 aerial photographign-photos-historiques-1950-1965 (6 September 2026) |
Climate over time
station LA ROCHEPOT, 417 m, 7.7 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
The name
- goutte
- a small stream or a spot where water seeps out. Les Gouttes d'Or owes its name to this and not to gold. Water · Gérard Taverdet, Noms de lieux de Bourgogne (2007)
- or
- gold, as praise or as a reference to the colour at sunset. In Cote d'Or it is also read as a shortening of orient; that reading is uncertain. Shape and position · 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
3.28 ha of 5.33 ha delimited is registered to a legal entity
- GFA DES GOUTTES D OR26%
- SCEV DOMAINE DU CHATEAU BLEU12%
- GFA DU DOMAINE DES COMTES LAFON7%
- GFV DOMAINE CHANTAL ROPITEAU7%
- SC DOMAINE D AUVENAY4%
- 2 other legal entities5%
- private individuals or unknown38%
- 1.38 ha GFA DES GOUTTES D OR GFA · land company
- 0.63 ha GROUPEMENT FONCIER VITICOLE CLAUDINE GAUNOUX GFA · land company
- 0.40 ha GFA DU DOMAINE DES COMTES LAFON GFA · land company
- 0.39 ha GFV DOMAINE CHANTAL ROPITEAU AUPM · wine business
- 0.20 ha SC DOMAINE D AUVENAY SC · land company
- 0.16 ha SCEA DOMAINE MARIE JOSEPHE ROPITEAU AUPM · wine business
- 0.12 ha CLOS RICHEMONT SCEA · wine business
Private individuals or unknown: 2.05 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
- En Luraule Village · 150 m
- Les Terres Blanches Village · 150 m
- Les Pelles-Dessus Village · 250 m
- Chaumes des Narvaux Village · 300 m
- Clos de Mazeray Village · 350 m
- Les Bouchères Premier Cru · 350 m
- Le Porusot Premier Cru · 350 m
- Les Meix Gagnes Village · 400 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.