Taransaud

The house

The first Taransaud to become a cooper did so in 1672. Roger Taransaud set up on his own at Juillac-le-Coq in 1932, moved to Cognac in 1937 and founded the Tonnellerie Taransaud in 1940. From 1944, working with his sons Pierre and Jean, he took on apprentices and coopers and moved into the center of Cognac. Fire destroyed the workshops on May 15, 1968; they were rebuilt at Merpins, where the house already kept its wood and where it works today.

In 1972 Taransaud became a subsidiary of Hennessy, the cognac house. Jean Taransaud followed his father at its head in 1973 and led the company until his death in 1990; his Le livre de la tonnellerie, of 1976, is still cited in research on oak and toasting. In 1988 the house added wine barrels to its cognac casks, began to export and grew from 49 to 90 employees.

Henri de Pracomtal left the presidency of Hennessy in 1997 and, with his family, bought Taransaud back into their group, Chêne & Cie. In October 2000, after 4 years of working together, Chêne & Cie and the Australian consultancy WineNet formed Taransaud Australasia, for Australia and New Zealand. A workshop in Beaune, for Burgundy, opened in 2000 and gained a new building in 2012, the year the house also built a workshop at Merpins for its limited series of T5 barrels. In 2011 the house filed the name Ovum in the United States, for a wooden egg of 2,000 liters made from 300 trees. Nicolas Tiquet-Lavandier has been its general director since June 15, 2020, and since October 20, 2021 the group itself has chaired the house. It employed 255 people in 2025.

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

At a glance

Kind

Cooperage

Based in

Merpins, near Cognac; Beaune

Founded

1940, by Roger Taransaud; coopers since 1672

Owner

Chêne & Cie, of the de Pracomtal family, since 1997

Direction

Nicolas Tiquet-Lavandier, general director

Brands

Taransaud; Taransaud Beaune; T5

Abroad

Taransaud Australasia, for Australia and New Zealand, 2000

In the record

Cheval Blanc, 2022 vintage; Laroque, 2022 vintage; Canon, 2023 vintage