Cooperage
Tonnellerie Berthomieu
How to read this
Capitals mark the stressed syllable. “eu” is “ay” said with rounded lips. The French r comes from the back of the throat. The recording is the reference.
A cooperage begun at Vinay early in the 20th century, which made small chestnut barrels for the Beaujolais poured in restaurants and now belongs to Charlois, a family of stave makers.
The house
The census of 1906 finds Jules Joseph Bith at work as a cooper at Vinay, in the Isère. In the late 1940s he handed the cooperage to his son-in-law, Arthur Berthomieu, and under the new name it made small chestnut barrels for the Beaujolais poured in restaurants.
The present company was formed at Vinay in 1993. In 1999 it moved to La Charité-sur-Loire, in the Nièvre, to be closer to its stave supplier. It joined the Charlois group in 2006, and in 2013 it took the name Tonnellerie Berthomieu / Ermitage. The house bends its staves with steam, which draws out some of the tannin and lets the toasting that follows go deeper and more gently. For its Ermitage barrels the oak comes from trees over 150 years old in state forests.
The house kept an office in Bordeaux from 2015 to 2020 and has had an establishment at Ludon-Médoc, north of the city, since January 1, 2021. In April 2024 the site was run by Vincent Chaminion, who came to the cooperage in 2003 and started out making barrel heads. It had about 30 people, and its output had gone from 90 barrels a day to 130.
Its barrels are on record in Pessac-Léognan. For the 2022 vintage Château La Garde made its white wines with several coopers, Berthomieu among them. Château Olivier, a Cru Classé de Graves, aged its whites of the 2024 vintage in barrels of 220 liters from 5 coopers, Berthomieu again among them. Those are the records of those 2 years.
At a glance
- Kind
- Cooperage
- Based in
- La Charité-sur-Loire; establishment at Ludon-Médoc
- Founded
- At Vinay, by Jules Joseph Bith, a cooper there in 1906
- Owner
- Charlois group, since 2006
- Direction
- Vincent Chaminion, site manager
- Brands
- Berthomieu, Ermitage
- In the record
- La Garde, 2022 vintage; Olivier, 2024 vintage
Sources
- Books and studies
- Alice Heraud, Influence et comparaison des cuves tronconiques classiques et inversées sur la vinification de raisins issus de Merlot et Cabernet Sauvignon, 2023; Aikaterini Nikou, L’intérêt de réincorporer les bourbes filtrées sur la vinification du Sauvignon blanc, 2025; Vins et Vignobles, vol. 16 no. 4, on the Charlois group
- Registers
- Tonnellerie Berthomieu / Ermitage, SIREN 392 569 737 (Annuaire des Entreprises); Company record, Tonnellerie Berthomieu / Ermitage, SIREN 392 569 737 (Pappers)
- Companies
- Tonnellerie Ermitage, La Maison
- Its own publications
- Tonnellerie Berthomieu, La Maison; Charlois: Berthomieu, between age-old know-how and technological progress, 2019, Vincent Chaminion, site manager at Tonnellerie Berthomieu/Ermitage, interviewed by Stéphane Ebel, 2024
Revised October 15, 2026. How I choose sources
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