A French potter’s Cromwell paradise
Moved by the landscape, Yannick Fourbet gets to work.
The garden looks very French too, with eight mature plane trees that provide shade from the hot Central Otago sun, stone walls, hedges, lavender, roses, “lots of easy-care plants”, cream shingle, and of course, many pots.
Yannick Fourbet, a French potter, met his Kiwi banker wife, Philippa, while exhibiting his grand pots at the Chelsea Flower Show. Living in London, Philippa wanted his pots for her holiday home, a winery back in New Zealand. She did one better, eventually bringing back the potter as well. Now the couple and their five-year-old twins, Mortimer and Augustin, live in the organic Cromwell vineyard, Domaine Rewa, where, finally installed in his newly built workshop, Yannick is hand-crafting pots. “It was a dream to have a one-man workshop. In France I was operating the family pottery with my sister and 15 employees before the subprime crisis (in 2007). We were making pots in a much more industrial way which was very pleasant but not my soul and reason to make pottery.”
Now while he still cannot entirely devote himself to pot-making, he splits his time doing something much more pleasurable than bookwork – looking after the boys while Philippa works.
Covid-19 has made it more difficult for them to visit their beloved France. However, the winery, as Yannick, says, “is like a little bit of France” and he is intent on making it more so.
The schist house is set among the vines and was modelled on a winery built in the 19th century in Clyde by a French viticulturalist. Picturesque as it is though, it is not very practical to live in, Yannick says, with its high ceilings and windows that cannot easily be reached. The garden looks very French, too, with eight mature plane trees that provide shade from the hot Central Otago sun, stone wall, hedges, lavender, roses, “lots of easy-care plants”, cream shingle, and, of course, many pots.
Yannick was an antiques dealer when he first began making pots. On a visit to his ancestral home in the south of France, he called in at a pottery making a local speciality, Anduze pots. These large, glazed horticultural vessels are traditionally used for growing citrus. Elongated with a base, they are made in a mould, typically decorated with a garland and emblems, that date back to the early 17th century, “they are an icon of Mediterranean French gardens,” he explains.
He felt compelled to learn how they made the beautiful pots – and did. He eventually bought the pottery with his father. They renamed it Le Chêne Vert (Green Oaks) after their family’s 18th century estate north of Montpellier. There are several potteries in the region making Anduze pots, but Le Chêne Vert is one of a few hand-turning the pots, which are designed and produced in its workshop in the small village Anduze itself.
Yannick’s developing expertise in patina and glazes had its genesis in his antique dealing days and lead to the pottery getting a major commission to make 20 Anduze
The schist house is set among the vines and was modelled on a winery built in the 19th century in Clyde by a French viticulturalist.
pots for the Palace of Versailles’ Parc du Grand Trianon. The gardeners brought in fragments of the 18th and 19th century pots which had been destroyed in a storm, and Yannick was able to make replacements which replicated their unique and weathered patina.
Later, an act of kindness and a pitcher of wine led him to learn an even more ancient method of pot-making, using rope wrapped around plywood moulds. “This made me the potter I am today,” he says, recounting how he met Gilbert Serres, who was demonstrating his techniques at one of the potters’ swap meets held throughout the summer. “It was a really, really hot day and he was right in the sun and a lot of people were all around him. When he was done, he was really sweating and I felt sorry for him. So, I crossed the road to ask one of the bar owners if I can borrow a pitcher of rose and a couple of glasses. I sat next to Gilbert and said would you like a glass of rose. We chatted and I said I’d be interested in knowing how to do this thing because it is quite fantastic and he said, ‘If it wasn’t for that glass of rose I would say no’.”
It is this rope technique that he mainly uses in his Cromwell workshop as it enables him to make very large pots. “I make ones to fit into the vast landscape of New Zealand,” he says. His biggest measures 110cm by 110cm
“I make pots to fit into the vast landscape of New Zealand,” says Yannick. His biggest pots measure 110cm by 110cm and weigh 500kg.