Maison Charlois

In the production of stave wood, every step is essential to ensuring high-quality wood for cooperage. After the edging process, comes the sorting phase. This crucial step involves selecting the stave wood pieces that meet the strict requirements for producing staves, ensuring the quality and, most importantly, the watertightness of the barrels.   S [...]

The wood reader   He’s one of those people you just want to let speak, to listen. On a short distance of a well-deserved vacation, José Simoes, 66, has spent over thirty years at Maison Charlois. Meet him.   It is a few minutes past 4pm. José has just stacked and sorted his last pieces […]

Optimizing oak raw material is at the heart of the Charlois group’s commitments, which recycles 100% of its wood raw material, of which nearly 90% in-house.   As Jean-Louis Binder’s photographies from the 1960s and the Maison Charlois archives testify, this policy of recycling production by-products (coquerons, short off-cuts, shavings, sawdust, sw [...]

As mentioned in previous instalments of the series devoted to photographs taken by Jean-Louis Binder in Murlin in the 1950s and 1960s, Maison Charlois used to produce both split timber and sawn timber, including a large number of railway sleepers.   The market for railway sleepers was massive back then. To understand the size of […]

Thanks to Jean-Louis Binder’s photographs, we can provide a visual record of Maison Charlois’ activities in the 1950s and 1960s. At that time, the Charlois family already had in its DNA a desire to make the most of every raw material, shaping all parts of the oak tree, whatever their dimensions. The workshop produced both […]

Once received on the Murlin site, the logs were cut into sections. This step was carried out with a two-men chainsaw. This type of chainsaw became widespread in sawmills after the Second World War: one man was placed on the engine side and the second at the other end to guide the blade.   The […]

The Charlois family has always enjoyed a close relationship with the Bertranges forest and its century-old oak trees. It was therefore only natural for the Charlois family to have sourced, for several centuries, high-quality oak staves from this exceptional forest that is now managed by the ONF (National Forest Office). These photographs taken by J [...]

Friday October 6 was the traditional Autumn timber sale of the ONF Bourgogne-Ouest agency (Nièvre and Yonne), in Clamecy.8:30 am, Romain-Rolland room, 1st floor of the Town Hall. The room is filling up fast. The bidding is about to begin. Among 30 or so buyers present, or on videoconference, Maison Charlois is well represented, with […]

After being sorted at the log yard, merrain-quality oaks are cut into logs approximately 1.20 meters long as they enter the stave mill Each log is split into several quarters along the grain. This critical step ensures the watertightness of the future staves. The quarters are sawn lengthwise, always along the grain, to the desired […]

Following skidding and loading operations, oak logs are transported to Murlin (Maison Charlois) or Saint-Martin-du-Puy (Les Ateliers du Chêne) for sorting and marking. Upon arrival at the log yard, any logs that do not meet the quality standards for staves (merrain) or railway ties are downgraded to construction timber or “All-Length Wood” (Bois To [...]

French oak used in cooperage represents an exceptional quality of wood that meets strict specifications. Oak of merrain quality belongs to the elite of French oaks, accounting for less than 1% of the total volume of wood (all species combined) sold annually in France.  As a result, merrain is an extremely rare raw material that […]

Eugène Charlois, ninth generation, was born in Chaulgnes on January 11, 1900, under the Third Republic, then presided over by Émile Loubet   Descendant of a line of splitters (fendeurs) from the Nivernais region, whose origins date back to the 17th century, it was only natural that Eugène turned to the trade of his ancestors. […]