When François Cabrié founded the first cooperage, the town of Rieux-Minervois had 1771 inhabitants divided into 537 households.
According to the 1872 population census, each of 537 heads of household had a profession. Of these, 38 were coopers (4 master coopers, 22 coopers and 12 coopers’ workers), i.e. around 7% of heads of household, to which should be added 25 coopers or coopers’ workers also listed in the same year (mainly sons of coopers or farmers).
At this time, wine-growing and related activities played a major role in the lives of Aude’s inhabitants, as Jules Guyot attests in his Étude des vignobles de France. In 1868, “the vine is […] incontestably Aude’s greatest asset”, as it provided a livelihood for more than two-thirds of the population. At the time, Aude boasted some 80,000 hectares of vines, with an annual production of around 3,200,000 hectolitres.
At that time, François Cabrié, grandfather of Marius Saury and founder of the first family cooperage, was one of the heads of cooperage families.
Indeed, the cooperage’s roots in family tradition predate 1873, when the first family cooperage was founded, as François Cabrié is recorded as a cooper in civil records as early as 1867*.
To celebrate its 150th anniversary, Saury Cooperage has created the “150” barrel as a limited edition for 2023, numbered and produced in 150 copies. The “150” barrel was previewed at the Unified Wine & Grape Symposium in Sacramento, January 24-26, 2023.
*Marriage certificate of François Cabrié and Marie Bezès dated November 21, 1867 and Birth certificate of Marie-Antoinette Cabrié, wife of Jean Saury dated January 21, 1868 – Departmental Archives of Aude.
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