Radoux

The house

Robert Radoux opened his workshop at Jonzac, in Charente-Maritime, in 1947, to repair barrels and vats. His son Christian, a master cooper and a Compagnon du Devoir, member of the old French brotherhood of craftsmen, took it over in 1977 and in 1982 made it a company, Tonnellerie Radoux. Then he went back to the wood, with a stave mill of his own, Sciage du Berry, in 1987, and out to the buyers, with a subsidiary in California in 1994.

The house is known for that reading of the wood, OakScan, a system worked out with researchers of the French institutes INRA and CEMAGREF to sort the staves by their tannin before a barrel is made. It grew out of research by Nicolas Mourey at Radoux, with enologists of the University of Bordeaux. The house filed the name in France on October 31, 2008, and in September 2010 OakScan won a gold medal at Vinitech, the Bordeaux trade fair. In 2012 Julien Michel wrote his doctoral thesis on it at the Bordeaux faculty of enology, working with staves air dried for 18 months in the yard at Jonzac.

Radoux later belonged to the Oeneo group. On March 29, 2012 Oeneo sold it whole to Tonnellerie François Frères, the Burgundy family cooperage at the head of TFF Group. The sale took in the Spanish cooperage Victoria and Pronektar, which makes oak alternatives to the barrel. At the time Radoux sold about 29 million euros a year. Romain Liagre has been its managing director since 2014. For the 2020 vintage Château Martet, at Eynesse, aged its La Réserve de Famille for 18 months in new Radoux barrels; that is the record of that year.

At a glance

Kind

Cooperage

Based in

Jonzac

Founded

1947, by Robert Radoux; Tonnellerie Radoux from 1982

Owner

TFF Group, since March 2012

Direction

Romain Liagre, managing director

Brands

Radoux, Victoria, Pronektar, OakScan

Abroad

Radoux USA, California, 1994; Radoux Australasia

In the record

Martet, 2020 vintage