Some weeks ago we tasted 10 different French sparkling wines on a covered veranda in the outskirts of the village of Trépail. Everything was green on the other side of the wet panorama windows. On top the forest, then the Chardonnay- and Pinot Noir-vines of our hosts and just on the other side of the glass, the lawn of the couple.
A lawn that is definitely too small for soccer, but they will manage to fit in a game of crocket on their green slope. They must like grass a lot, couldn't help thinking it. Or maybe they just really have plenty of vines, since the grass actually grow in champagne soils, that are the most expensive square meters of farming soils, you can find in France.
Average prices of soils
The average price has grown 8,3 percent in one year. The department of Marne, where we live, is the most expensive at 665.000 euro per hectare. The average price for all five departments with champagneland is 627.000 euro per hectare.
But since this is average prices, some hectares are sold for a million euros, others thus for less. The most expensive AOC-land outside Champagne is in Alsace, where hectares for vines are sold for an average of 133.700 per hectare. Ordinary land for farming cost 4.740 euros per hectare.
The very strong demand for champagne pushes the prices of land to the skies, and probably only rich champagnehouses would have enough money to pay the costs these days.
The numbers are from FNSAFER (la Fédération nationale des sociétés d'aménagement foncier et d'établissement rural).
Read more about the prices here.
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