Château cooperage
Château Margaux cooperage
How to read this
Capitals mark the stressed syllable. The French r comes from the back of the throat. The recording is the reference.
Nearly one quarter of the barrels at Château Margaux are made at home, by a cooper of its own, in a cooperage set beside the cellars of the château built from 1810.
The house
Barrels are in the estate’s oldest records: in 1705 the London Gazette announced an auction that included 230 barrels of Margose. When the present château went up, from 1810 to 1815, the cellars, the vat room and the cooperage were set together on one side of the estate buildings. The ensemble was listed as a Historic Monument in 1946; the façades and roofs of the château and its outbuildings were classified on July 5, 1965.
André Mentzelopoulos bought Château Margaux in 1977 and brought in aging in new oak; the grand vin now spends about 21 months in new French oak. Nearly one quarter of the estate’s barrels are made in its own cooperage. Its cooper in 2025, Jonathan, chooses each stave, raises the staves into a barrel, toasts it, bends and hoops it and fits the heads. Some of the tools have passed from master to apprentice over generations, and 1 barrel takes about 4 hours.
At a glance
- Kind
- Château cooperage
- Based in
- Margaux, at Château Margaux
- Owner
- The Mentzelopoulos family, since 1977
- Direction
- Alexis Leven-Mentzelopoulos, chief executive; Philippe Bascaules, managing director until the end of 2026; Aurélien Valance from December 1, 2026
- In the record
- Nearly one quarter of the estate’s barrels, 2025
Sources
- Its own publications
- Château Margaux: The Art of Cooperage at Château Margaux, 2025, history, A new chapter in the history of Château Margaux, 2026, L’art de la tonnellerie à Château Margaux, April 25, 2025
Revised October 15, 2026. How I choose sources
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