Lieu-dit · Saint-Sernin-du-Plain
Lès Varennes
Lès Varennes is a lieu-dit in Saint-Sernin-du-Plain, Côte Chalonnaise, Burgundy, whose largest tier is regional.
5.43 ha
delimited
306 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
| Level | Regionalinao-aoc-viticoles-bulk (c. 4 September 2026) |
|---|---|
| Village | Saint-Sernin-du-Plain |
| Region | Côte Chalonnaise, Burgundy |
| Delimited | 5.43 hainao-aoc-viticoles-bulk (c. 4 September 2026) · cadastre-etalab (4 September 2026) |
| Planted | 1.07 hacadastre-etalab (4 September 2026) · ign-bdtopo-vigne (5 September 2026) · ign-rpg-2024 (5 September 2026) |
| Parcels | 39 |
| Grape variety | aligoté, chardonnay, melon, pinot blanc, pinot gris, gamay, pinot noir, césar also permitted: aligoté, chardonnay, gamay de bouze, gamay de chaudenay, melon, 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 52 named plots ranked regional in Saint-Sernin-du-Plain, from high to low:
Position
306 m
elevation
10.9%
firm
S
south
mid-slope
convex ridge
| Elevation | 306 m 289 to 315 mign-rge-alti (5 September 2026) |
|---|---|
| Daytime temperature | +0.30 °C by day, relative to the village centre at 344 m, ± 0.06 °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 | 10.9% 6.2°ign-rge-alti (5 September 2026) |
| Aspect | south 176°ign-rge-alti (5 September 2026) |
| On the slope | 42% mid slope, on a convex ridge, 201 m drains onto itign-rge-alti (5 September 2026) |
Bedrock
- 5%Variegated Triassic clay with gypsum 237–201 million years
- 16%Greenish Triassic sandstone and dolomite about 252–237 million years
- 79%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
07:50
above the hill
19:13
behind the hill
11.4 h
sun at harvest
0.8 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 07:50 above the hill and disappears at 19:13 behind the hill: 11.4 hours of direct sun on a clear day. The ridge reaches 8.8° above the horizon to the north.
| Irradiation | +2.7% versus flat land 1,078 kWh/m² from April to October, 42% 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 | 99.5% 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 | 06:31 | 20:51 | 14.3 h | 15.9 h |
| 20 September | 07:50 | 19:13 | 11.4 h | 12.3 h |
| 21 December | 08:44 | 16:32 | 7.8 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), 30% of the far field is forest (BD Forêt), no buildings.
Air and cold
42 m
above the lowest point
drains far away
cold air
a combe
10.2 ha flows past
| Cold air | 42 m high on the slope, cold air drains far awayign-rge-alti (5 September 2026) |
|---|---|
| Cold air passing through | 10.2 ha a combe, mean over the polygon 0.49 haign-rge-alti (5 September 2026) |
Planting
NE-SW
diagonal to the slope
1.04 m
between the rows
80%
vineyard in 1950
| Rows | NE-SW (35°) diagonal to the slope (40°), every 1.04 m, varies by plotmeasured over 1.0 of 1.1 ha plantedign-bdortho (5 September 2026) |
|---|---|
| Vineyard in 1950 | 80% abandoned since: 2.17 haassessed over 3.9 ha on the 1950-1965 aerial photographign-photos-historiques-1950-1965 (6 September 2026) |
Climate over time
station LA ROCHEPOT, 417 m, 7.9 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
- 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
2.06 ha of 5.43 ha delimited is registered to a legal entity
- DOMAINE ANDRE DELORME37%
- DES CHAMPS PHILIPPE<1%
- private individuals or unknown62%
- 2.03 ha DOMAINE ANDRE DELORME SCEA · wine business
- 0.02 ha DES CHAMPS PHILIPPE SCI · land company
Private individuals or unknown: 3.38 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 Baumes Regional · 150 m
- Le Bois de l' Étang Regional · 150 m
- Lès Theurots Regional · 250 m
- Lès Mortes Regional · 300 m
- Lès Grandes Plantes Regional · 300 m
- Aux Poils Blancs Regional · 350 m
- Aux Queues de Renards Regional · 350 m
- Lès Genievres Regional · 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.