On our approach to the long downhill run to the sea, we pass the ivy-covered bridge of La Mediterranean and are promptly stopped in our tracks by a squat brick building sprouting a tall cheminée. This is the Not brothers’ pottery workshop, where hand-thrown cassoulet bowls are fired in capacious kilns alongside glowing ochre and green garden pots and urns. What a clay-dusted Ali Baba’s cave of bowls and pots!

Through the dark entrance the kilns glow, cooking the earth’s crust into heavy vessels. A hand-lettered sign beckons—“entrée” is scrawled across the door.

We wander the atelier as father, son, uncle and workers go about their daily production in quiet harmony. The constant whirr of the foot-spun wheels is broken only by a radio tuned to a local French pop station. The quiet is barely disrupted by our visit. Whirr—a ball of clay becomes a wide-mouthed bowl. Shuup—the thick lip is pinched between thumb and fingers to form a small spout.