Chêne & Cie

The house

Taransaud comes from a line of coopers going back to 1672. Roger Taransaud set up as a craftsman at Juillac-le-Coq, in the Cognac country, in 1932. Fire destroyed the workshops on May 15, 1968, and they were rebuilt at Merpins; in 1972 the cooperage became a subsidiary of Hennessy. Roger’s son Jean took over in 1973, with 49 people, and in 1976 wrote Le livre de la tonnellerie. In 1988 the house added wine barrels to its cognac casks, began to export and grew to 90 employees.

Henri de Pracomtal had chaired the management board of Hennessy. In September 1997 he bought Taransaud with his family and founded Chêne & Cie to hold it. American oak came in October 1998 with Canton, a cooperage founded at Canton, Ohio, in 1933 and based at Lebanon, Kentucky, since 1983. In 2000 the group set up its research center in the Bordeaux region, and Taransaud opened at Beaune, in Burgundy. Australia came the same year: in October 2000 the group and WineNet, an Australian consulting firm, formed Taransaud Australasia, after 4 years of working together. Hungarian oak followed in 2008 with Kádár, a joint venture with the Hungarian cooperage Budapesti Kádár. French oak comes through Chêne Bois, since 2008, and Sylvabois, since 2024.

The group is still the family’s. Since January 2023 Henri de Pracomtal has chaired the supervisory board, after 26 years as chairman and chief executive, and Rodolphe de Leusse has chaired the management board. Jacquelin de Pracomtal sits on that board and is vice-chairman of Taransaud, which Nicolas Tiquet-Lavandier runs. At Merpins, where the workshops were rebuilt after the fire of 1968, Taransaud built a new one in 2012 for the T5, its barrels made in limited series.

At a glance

Kind

Cooperage group

Based in

Paris; Taransaud at Merpins, near Cognac, and at Beaune

Founded

September 1997, by Henri de Pracomtal and his family; Taransaud from 1932

Owner

The de Pracomtal family, since 1997

Direction

Rodolphe de Leusse, chairman of the management board; Henri de Pracomtal, chairman of the supervisory board

Brands

Taransaud, Taransaud T5, Canton, Kádár, XtraChêne, Chêne Bois, Sylvabois

Abroad

Kentucky, 1998; Australia, 2000; Hungary, 2008