Tonnellerie Vicard

The house

Paul Vicard joined his wife’s family in the trade at Cognac in 1925, working beside his father-in-law, Armand Bourdaraud, and his brother-in-law Justin. In 1950 the house took the name Bourdaraud & Vicard. Jean Vicard was named Meilleur Ouvrier de France, the title the French state gives to a master of his craft, in 1965. In 1970 the cooperage left the center of Cognac for its edge. Its first barrels went abroad in 1976, to Italy, Greece and Germany.

Jean-Charles Vicard joined in 1987. The house went back to the forest with a stave mill of its own, Merrains de France, in Moselle, in 1995. In 1996 Maison Louis Jadot, the Beaune négociant (a merchant who buys from the châteaux and sells on), set up its own cooperage, Cadus, with Vicard. The family’s companies were merged into Tonnellerie Vicard in 2016, with Jean-Charles Vicard as president. Vicard USA followed in 2018, with the weOAK range, and the house marked its 100th year in 2025. The INRS, the French institute for health and safety at work, gave it its bronze medal. The house had found a way of fitting staves together that spares the coopers’ necks, shoulders and wrists, and chose not to patent it so that others could take it up.

Beside the barrels of the Generation 7 and ECO ranges, it makes large casks under the name Vision and Eggonum, a vessel of oak in the shape of an egg. Its output is about 40,000 barrels a year, 70% of them for export. For the 2022 vintage Château Guiraud, a Premier Cru Classé of Sauternes, aged its wines in barrels from more than 10 coopers, Vicard among them; that is the record of that year. The cooperage that left the center of Cognac for 3 hectares in 1970 now covers 14 outside it.

At a glance

Kind

Cooperage

Based in

Cognac

Founded

1925, with Paul Vicard; Bourdaraud & Vicard from 1950

Owner

The Vicard family

Direction

Jean-Charles Vicard, president since 2016

Brands

Generation 7, ECO, weOAK, Vision, Eggonum, Merrains de France

Abroad

First exports in 1976; Vicard USA, 2018; 70% of its barrels

In the record

Guiraud, 2022 vintage