Benoît Andrieux, industrial methods technician at the Atelier du foudrier, interviewed by Stéphane Ebel

The Clever Inventor!

At the Atelier du Foudrier in Barret, he’s not the one making the most noise. Benoît Andrieux, 43, an industrial methods technician, is a discreet, determined and meticulous man. In the design office, he’s the one who starts everything, the one who designs the vats and casks ordered by the group’s customers. He is the link between sales and production.

At the keyboard, eyes glued to the screen, Benoît sketches out plans, one sketch after another, drawings of what tomorrow’s large vats will look like in today’s wineries. It’s all down to the millimetre. The latest projects Benoît has worked on, which have been installed in the cellars of Alphonse Mellot in Sancerre, Martell and Les Tuileries in Cognac, bear witness to this. ‘What I love is drawing, that’s true, but I also love going out into the field with the sales team. With customers who have specific needs. In terms of large vats, each one is unique and meets the needs of winegrowers and distillers for vinification or storage’.

Why keep it simple…

Benoît is a bit like the Géo Trouvetout of the Atelier du foudrier. What interests him is finding a solution for every problem that arises, and what he likes is complicated ones. He has even been known to create tools to make his production colleagues’ jobs easier: “It’s much more interesting for me in any case”. He has been in the design office for just over two years. Before that, Benoît worked in a competitor’s design office, where he got to grips with the world of vats and casks. ‘It was more industrial than here at the Atelier du Foudrier, where we work in a very traditional way. Each piece that comes out of the workshop is unique and corresponds to a particular place and use’.

… When you can do complicated

Benoît moved to Charente with his wife and children, a few kilometres from his native Dordogne, and quickly found his feet among his new colleagues. The skills he acquired as a student, and confirmed during his experience with the industrialist Leroy-Somer, are now at the service of the Atelier du Foudrier, a specialist in large vats. ‘At the end of secondary school, I decided to go into vocational education. I didn’t necessarily have a very clear idea of what I wanted to do, so I decided to continue my industrial studies’. This was followed by a BTS and then a vocational degree in design, model-making and pattern-making. ‘I’ve always loved mechanics. I like researching, finding, innovating, designing to manufacture’. During his degree, Benoît took up a work placement with Leroy-Somer, one of France’s biggest industrial mechanics companies, based in Angoulême. ‘I stayed there for twelve years, as a methods technician, after obtaining my CQPM* at the end of my placement. It’s a huge company, with over 3,000 employees at the time. I learned a lot there, and it’s still useful to me today’. After Leroy-Somer, Benoît did a few years’ freelance work for fellow coopers: ’They were the benchmark for large vats. I was recruited to professionalise the manufacture of large vats’. During this six-year period, Benoît also became a reference in the field of large vats.

Love at first sight

‘I wanted and needed to see something else,’ says Benoît with characteristic modesty. ‘I wanted something else, something that suited me. So when David, Industrial Director at Charlois, an old acquaintance, asked him to join the group and join the Atelier du Foudrier design office, he was quick to respond. It was a resounding YES! You can’t turn down a challenge like this. I’ve got carte blanche on the projects, so to speak, and I’m involved from the outset. I love going out to customers with the sales rep. Getting a feel for the place, taking measurements, optimising every square centimetre of the cellars and wineries and then, the icing on the cake, seeing the projects come to life in the workshop next door before they are delivered to the customer.

Three questions for Benoît:

For the past two years, you’ve been working as an industrial methods technician at the Atelier du Foudrier. What exactly does this involve?

Large vats, unlike barrels, are made to measure at the customer’s request. We have little or no stock. Everything is tailor-made to suit the future location of the vats and casks. We have to take into account access to the cellars and their configuration, which can sometimes be complex. In the end, everything has to fit, bearing in mind that we deliver the vats and casks assembled or they are assembled directly on site. So, I’d like to say that we start with a blank sheet of paper and design what the vat is going to look like, including the accessories, and its place in the cellar.

Which project are you most proud of?

Without hesitation, the one for Alphonse Mellot in Sancerre. 9 round-based truncated-cone tanks and 11 oval-based truncated-cone tanks made to measure. I went to the winery several times to take measurements and understand the customer’s needs. A vat or a foudre is not like a barrel. There are all the extra accessories, the supports on which they rest… There’s no room for error. Every project is interesting. What’s more, we form a very complementary team, with Kilian helping me in the design office, Cyrille managing the production side and Thierry looking after the commercial aspects. Everyone knows and does what they have to do, and that’s important.

What about Charlois?

When I was at the competition (smiles), you’d hear people talking about Charlois here and Charlois there. In Cognac and the surrounding area, everyone knows each other more or less, and in the world of cognac, everyone knows each other. So yes, I knew the area by reputation, and I knew people who worked there. At the time, I was told about the values of the company, the know-how, the means to work… the atmosphere…. I wasn’t lied to. To put it simply, I’ve rediscovered the atmosphere, the artisanal side of the job that I’d lost and top-notch working conditions. What more can you say (or ask)?

*Certificat de Qualification Paritaire de la Métallurgie (Joint Qualification Certificate for the Metallurgy Industry)

Photograph © Christophe Deschanel