Darnajou

The house

Darnajou has made barrels on the Right Bank since 1976, today from 2 sites northeast of Saint-Émilion, at Montagne and at Artigues-de-Lussac. The present company, Tonnellerie Vincent Darnajou, dates from July 1, 1996, and its first workshop stood at Lalande-de-Pomerol until 2004, when it moved to Montagne. Vincent and Nadège Darnajou ran it, he as president and she as general director, until April 2019. The site at Artigues-de-Lussac opened on November 1, 2021, after the company took in Tonnellerie Darnajou II.

In February 2019 the TFF Group, the listed oak group of the François family, agreed to take over the cooperage, which then had about 20 staff and a turnover of about 7 million euros. The deal was done in March 2019, and the group has owned all of it since. Simon Grelier, who also runs the group’s Médoc cooperage, Berger & Fils, has been its general director since September 2, 2019. In July 2020 the group bought 80% of the stave mill Bernard Gauthier and of the cooperage Gauthier Frères, in part to make sure of fine oak for Darnajou. The cooperage’s turnover passed 11 million euros in 2025.

Its barrels are on record at 2 great estates of Saint-Émilion. For the 2022 vintage Château Cheval Blanc worked mainly with 5 coopers, Darnajou among them, and for the 2023 vintage Château Canon worked with 6, Darnajou again among them. Those are the records of those 2 years.

At a glance

Kind

Cooperage

Based in

Montagne and Artigues-de-Lussac

Founded

1976; the present company in 1996

Owner

TFF Group, of the François family, since March 2019

Direction

Simon Grelier, general director

In the record

Cheval Blanc, 2022 vintage; Canon, 2023 vintage