Cooperage
Sylvain
How to read this
Capitals mark the stressed syllable. “an” is a nasal vowel: say it through the nose, with no n. The recording is the reference.
Gérard Sylvain repaired barrels in Libourne in 1957; the 2nd and 3rd generations of his family now make about 20,000 new ones a year at Saint-Denis-de-Pile.
The house
Gérard Sylvain set up in Libourne in 1957, mostly repairing barrels. Jean-Luc Sylvain joined as a cooper in 1980, and in 1984 the firm began to make new barrels, with Jean-Luc as its president. In 1991 it built 2,000 square meters of workshops at Saint-Denis-de-Pile, north of Libourne. The house makes about 20,000 barrels a year.
Then the family went beyond Bordeaux, and beyond the barrel. In March 1997 the house filed its marks in the United States. Jean-Luc had brought the buying of oak in house, and in 2000 the firm added a stave mill of its own, Sylvain Bois; the wood comes from French forests. In 2003 it bought Château La Rose Perrière, in Lussac-Saint-Émilion. The family has owned vines for 3 generations, and in 2004 Jean-Luc Sylvain took over Clos Les Grandes Versannes, about 1 hectare on the sands and gravels of Saint-Sulpice-de-Faleyrens, in the south of Saint-Émilion. In Burgundy the house has Tonnellerie Meyrieux, at Villers-la-Faye, and the Foudrerie Marc Grenier, at Corberon, a maker of large casks and vats. Rémi Sylvain came in as an apprentice cooper in 2012 and has managed the Foudrerie since 2015. That year Claire Sylvain joined as deputy director and the family’s own company took the chair of the house; since July 1, 2024 Claire and Rémi Sylvain have been its general directors.
Its barrels are in the records of great estates of the Right Bank. Château Figeac had been tasting its wines in barrels from different coopers since 2012, and by 2017 it had found that Sylvain barrels suited its Merlot. Sylvain was then air drying the staves of its Grande Réserve barrel for up to 36 months. For the 2022 vintage Château Cheval Blanc worked mainly with 5 coopers, Sylvain among them, and for the 2023 vintage Château Canon worked with 6, Sylvain again among them. Those are the records of those 3 years.
At a glance
- Kind
- Cooperage
- Based in
- Saint-Denis-de-Pile
- Founded
- 1957, by Gérard Sylvain, in Libourne
- Owner
- The Sylvain family, since 1957
- Direction
- Jean-Luc Sylvain, at its head since 1984; Claire and Rémi Sylvain, general directors since 2024
- Château
- La Rose Perrière, Lussac-Saint-Émilion, owned since 2003
- Brands
- Tonnellerie Meyrieux; Foudrerie Marc Grenier; Sylvain Bois
- In the record
- Figeac, 2017; Cheval Blanc, 2022 vintage; Canon, 2023 vintage
Sources
- Books and studies
- James Lawther, A Toast to the Finest, 2017, reprinted in On Bordeaux, 2020; Jeanne Lutun, Vinification et élevage à Château Cheval Blanc : élaboration du millésime 2022, 2023; Juliette Puche, Optimisation des fermentations malolactiques du château Canon, 2024
- Registers
- SA Tonnellerie Sylvain, SIREN 329 914 642 (Annuaire des Entreprises); Tonnellerie Meyrieux, SIREN 523 356 764 (Annuaire des Entreprises); Company record, SA Tonnellerie Sylvain (Pappers); USPTO, trademark applications 75264525 and 75264526 of Tonnellerie Sylvain, March 26, 1997
- Press
- Guide Hachette des Vins, Clos Les Grandes Versannes 2008, 2012
- Its own publications
- Tonnellerie Sylvain: Histoire familiale, Famille Sylvain
Revised October 10, 2026. How I choose sources
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