The Forest Park at Tonnellerie Bossuet

Tonnellerie Bossuet is located down a small country lane south of Jonzac in the hamlet of Saint Simon de Bordes. This is Cognac country, where rolling fields of rather shabby looking vines form a countryside quilt with grains and corn. The cooperage was built next door to the Bossuet family home on a property that has been in Christiane Bossuet’s family for generations.

Jean-Louis Bossuet and his wife Christiane moved here to start a family and found their cooperage in 1987. Jean Louis came from very humble beginnings. Raised in an orphanage run by Catholic priests, he says he always had a fascination with the forest and was encouraged to study forestry in school. Naturally gifted, his knowledge and passion attracted the attention of major western France cooperages, to whom he became known for supplying the best quality stave wood. In the early 80s, legendary Bordeaux cooper, the late Pierre Darnajou, took him under his wing, and taught him to make barrels. After several years of apprenticing, Pierre encouraged Jean-Louis to start Tonnellerie Bossuet.

Behind the Bossuet family home is a six acre plot that was originally a grain field. Over the 37 years that Jean-Louis has lived there, he has spent every spare moment creating an extraordinary park. There is a lake filled by a meandering spring fed stream, frequented by migrating birds, geese and ducks, some of which find their way to the Bossuet table. There is a rock garden, with limestone boulders brought from the coast filled with fossils on every side. Trees have been planted, over 100, including enormous sequoias, different species of French and American oaks, birch, maple and willow at the water’s edge.

When we visit, it is tradition to take a digestive stroll after lunch with Jean- Louis while he tells us about something new he planted, or shows us the latest growth in different areas. Despite the global cooperage business he has built, beating odds of his humble beginnings, something tells me it is the park that is his piece de resistance.

There is one part of the park that he is especially proud of. Along the steam, hidden by bamboo, is a shrine, built from limestone that houses a sculpture. Crafted from a single oak tree that had an enormous burl, is a magnificent hand carving of a woman’s body, the large burl forming her pregnant belly. It is an incredible site to behold, beautiful and natural and where Jean Louis goes to meditate after long days at the cooperage. It is a fascinating insight into Jean-Louis’s personality: a very hard working country man, who is soft spoken and finds spirituality in the forest.