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Lieu-dit · Moroges

Les Varennes

Les Varennes is a lieu-dit in Moroges, Côte Chalonnaise, Burgundy, whose largest tier is regional.

5.51 ha

delimited

289 m

elevation

11.4 h

sun at harvest

Open on the mapWith the boundary, the plots, the sun through the year and the bedrock.

In figures

LevelRegionalinao-aoc-viticoles-bulk (c. 4 September 2026)
VillageMoroges
RegionCôte Chalonnaise, Burgundy
Delimited5.51 hainao-aoc-viticoles-bulk (c. 4 September 2026) · cadastre-etalab (4 September 2026)
Planted1.86 hacadastre-etalab (4 September 2026) · ign-bdtopo-vigne (5 September 2026) · ign-rpg-2024 (5 September 2026)
Parcels43
Grape varietychardonnay, pinot noir, pinot blanc, pinot gris, aligoté, melon, sacy also permitted: gamayinao-cahiers-des-charges (7 September 2026) · dgddi-superficies-produits (7 September 2026) · franceagrimer-observatoire-viticulture (7 September 2026)
Organic0%agence-bio-cartobio (c. 5 September 2026) · agence-bio-operateurs (5 September 2026)

Place in the village

Among the 63 named plots ranked regional in Moroges, from high to low:

sun at harvest 29
elevation 45
slope 40
on the slope 35

Position

289 m

elevation

12.1%

steep

NW

northwest

mid-slope

even slope

Elevation289 m 272 to 305 mign-rge-alti (5 September 2026)
Daytime temperature+0.16 °C by day, relative to the village centre at 309 m, ± 0.02 °Cmeteo-france-quotidiennes (6 September 2026) · meteo-france-postes (6 September 2026) · meteo-france-lsh (6 September 2026) · ign-rge-alti (5 September 2026)
Slope12.1% 6.9°ign-rge-alti (5 September 2026)
Aspectnorthwest 305°ign-rge-alti (5 September 2026)
On the slope39% mid slope, on an even plane, 249 m drains onto itign-rge-alti (5 September 2026)

Bedrock

youngold
  • 6%Variegated Triassic clay with gypsum 237–⁠201 million years
  • 34%Greenish Triassic sandstone and dolomite about 252–⁠237 million years
  • 60%Two-mica leucogranite of the Mesvres type about 325–⁠305 million years (Namurien tot Westphalien)

Not a borehole: ordered by age, thickness by share of surface.

In the glass. Where vineyard stands on it (Couchois, Maranges edge), light, supple red and white wine rather than the firm style of the limestone. Compare with the leucogranites of the Beaujolais. (weak indication)

Light, medium-grained granite with biotite and muscovite, sometimes cordierite or tourmaline, intruded in the Namurian and Westphalian as a late phase of Variscan granite formation. Scattered across the Couchois and the western edge of the Côte Chalonnaise, where it outcrops beneath and beside the Luzy granite (h2-3pγ2).

For the vine. Weathers to coarse, acid, poor granite sand: lime-poor, very free-draining, quick to warm and drought-prone, prone to erosion. No chlorosis; low vigour.

Couchois and Chalonnais edge: Couches, Saint-Maurice-lès-Couches, Saint-Sernin-du-Plain, Paris-l'Hôpital, Dezize-lès-Maranges, Sampigny-lès-Maranges, Bissey-sous-Cruchaud, Moroges, Saint-Jean-de-Vaux, Saint-Mard-de-Vaux.

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: h3-4Lγ2, tG, tA.

brgm-bdcharm50 (4 September 2026)

Sun and horizon

08:05

above the hill

19:28

behind the hill

11.4 h

sun at harvest

Grey: sun up, but behind the hill or the vineyard's own slope.

Around harvest the sun rises here at 08:05 above the hill and disappears at 19:28 behind the hill: 11.4 hours of direct sun on a clear day. The ridge reaches 7.9° above the horizon to the south-southeast.

Irradiation−2.7% versus flat land 1,028 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)
Open sky99.4% 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 and the caveat
risesetsunday
21 June06:1121:1415.1 h15.9 h
20 September08:0519:2811.4 h12.3 h
21 December09:2516:126.8 h8.5 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), 31% of the far field is forest (BD Forêt), no buildings.

ign-rge-alti (5 September 2026) · ign-lidarhd-mnh (6 September 2026) · ign-bdforet-v2 (5 September 2026)

Air and cold

31 m

above the lowest point

drains far away

cold air

a gully

4.0 ha flows past

Cold air31 m high on the slope, cold air drains far awayign-rge-alti (5 September 2026)
Cold air passing through4.0 ha a gully, mean over the polygon 0.23 haign-rge-alti (5 September 2026)

Planting

NNE-SSW

across the slope

1.01 m

between the rows

100%

vineyard in 1950

RowsNNE-SSW (27°) across the slope (82°), every 1.01 m, all rows parallelmeasured over 1.8 of 1.9 ha plantedign-bdortho (5 September 2026)
Vineyard in 1950100% abandoned since: 2.72 haassessed over 4.6 ha on the 1950-1965 aerial photographign-photos-historiques-1950-1965 (6 September 2026)

Climate over time

196019802000202012°14°16°18°

station MT-ST-VINCENT, 601 m, 20.6 km away

growing season, April to October: 1951-1980: 13.5 °C, 1991-2020: 15.1 °C

Huglin index: 1951-1980: 1,248, 1991-2020: 1,553

last spring frost: 1951-1980: day 107, 1991-2020: day 101

series homogenised through 2022

The name

varenne
thin, sandy or gravelly ground, from Gaulish varenna. Soil and stone · Frédéric Godefroy, Dictionnaire de l'ancienne langue française (1881)

This is about the words, not about this plot: the same name can have arisen differently elsewhere.

Who owns land here

3.74 ha of 5.51 ha delimited is registered to a legal entity

  • PIGNERET FILS68%
  • private individuals or unknown32%

Private individuals or unknown: 1.76 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

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.