KELVIN COOPERAGE

Founded in 1963 along the banks of the Kelvin River in Glasgow,Scotland,
KELVIN COOPERAGE originally served the major distilleries in Scotland and Ireland.
In 1992, Ed McLaughlin relocated the cooperage to Louisville, Kentucky.

Bordeaux and Burgundy type wine barrels were first made at Louisville in 1995. Over the years, the coopers at KELVIN have developed and refined their wine barrel making techniques with very successful results.

Ed’s sons, Kevin and Paul McLaughlin direct all operations at the cooperage today. Winemakers can depend on the company’s competence, integrity and responsiveness.
The McLaughlin family business is dedicated, stable, and financially strong, a crucial requirement to maintain the oak inventories.

KELVIN’S location at Louisville is close to virtually all major white oak stave producers in the United States. With over forty-four inches of average rainfall, the cooperage aging yard is ideally placed to properly season oak wine staves and headings.

KELVIN sources the finest tight-grain, slow growth American oak from Central and Southwest Kentucky, Minnesota and Missouri. The cooperage offers 24 month or 36 month guaranteed naturally air-dried white oak origins.

Tight-grain French wood is sourced by KELVIN from the great forests of central and northeastern France. This split oak is seasoned outdoors at Vallon-en-Sully (Allier region) and Aix-en-Othe (Champagne) for a minimum of 24 months before shipment via ocean container to the cooperage.

Raw oak staves at KELVIN require inspection, planing, and jointing prior to bending. The raised barrels are carefully bent and slowly toasted over oak fires
to achieve deep penetration without blistering or scorching.
These toasting methods develop layered expressions of desirable
oak tannins and phenols. Utilizing the power of water,
KELVIN’S Hydra toast is a further evolution of the in-house
long toasting regimes.

KELVIN Cooperage is an exciting contender in the brave new world
of coopers with an annual production of 5,000 barrels. All the major ingredients for superior wine barrels are controlled here: consistent oak sourcing, impeccable air-drying programs, and quality fabrication techniques. This is limited production from the heartland where quality and craftsmanship prevail.