The land and the landscape indicate two winegrowing areas with slightly different characteristics. Beyond the plain, on the outskirts of Plivot, the coteaux, or slopes, appear near Chouilly and Cramant. Here, vineyards occupy a great many slopes of the plateau, which has deep gorges carved out of it by a series of rivers.
Beyond these villages, the landscape changes. An escarpment drops down steeply from the plain. The landscape is centred on a wooded summit, with vine-planted slopes extending from the heights right down to the convex plain, which curves round to make way for cereal crops. This area is thus ideally suited to chardonnay, which accounts for 97% of the grape varieties cultivated here and is what gives the Côte”des blancs”  its name.