Olivier Cousin, Vigneron in Anjou (Loire)

Olivier Cousin facing Romeo Martigné Briand, Anjou (Loire)
Here is a report about a vigneron who had several French administrations scrambling for action because of several issues regarding table-wine labelling and unpaid fees to the Anjou Appellation body InterLoire. More on this below...
A horse is indeed a big animal, but a draft horse is an even more impressive type of horse, and witnessing it in the hands of a grower is a great experience. Olivier Cousin is a vigneron who makes wine from a surface of 7 hectares in Anjou, in the immediate vicinity of a quiet village named Martigné Briand, near Thouarcé. He took over the vineyards from his grandfather, who also taught him the trade and the vineyard management. He is also well-known by a new generation of growers because he gives courses & training for the viticulture school of Montreuil-Bellay on the use of draft horses in the vineyard. These special courses, named Stages de traction animale, have been followed by now-outstanding growers like Sébastien Riffault and Alexandre Bain. Olivier Cousin had planned to plow his parcels in october, but the drought has forced him to wait, as the earth has to be soft enough for a gentle plow, and as mid-november approached, a couple of rains gave the proper consistency to the undersoil so that he could put his horses to task. This story will be about his work with his two beautiful draft horses as well as well as about the hassles he went through with the wine authorities and the French administration.
On the picture above, Olivier is preparing Romeo, one of the 4 draft horses he works with, before walking it into the van. He is going to drive Romeo and another horse to a vineyard near the village for a plow. Even if the vineyard is a very short way from this prairie (it's also near the village), Olivier uses a van to bring them there. Romeo is from the Percheron breed, and the brown horse is from the Breton breed.

Walking to the van I arrived from Touraine further east on my motorcycle, this was the weekend and I had come from Paris in the Loire to enjoy the autumn colors. The weather was a dream for november, and apart from a bit of fog in the morning, the road was very pleasant from the Cher valley, especially the part along the Loire between Saumur and Gennes. Olivier and Claire were still at the kitchen table when I walked into the courtyard, so we chatted as they finished eating (I had already eaten), tasting the very beautiful Gamay Primeur, a bright translucent red full of life and fruit, the type of wine you can drink the whole bottle by yourself, and straight. + + + As you may know, Olivier Cousin has been the target of several separate French administrations and enforcement agencies, first because of his refusal to pay for the compulsory contribution to the Loire wine lobby (named InterLoire, their website being Vins de Loire), then for improper labelling of his table-wine cuvées. The refusal to pay for Interloire was the first thing that brought him trouble, he considered InterLoire as no help for the type of wines he is making : Olivier Cousin is making additives-free (including sulphur free) wines from organicly-managed vineyards and there hasn't been any considerations for this type of wines from the part of Interloire, which has been tailoring its campaigns with mass production and supermarkets in mind. InterLoire being financed by a compulsory tax (named officially and the most-Kafkaïesque way CVO, for Cotisation Volontaire Obligatoire or "voluntary compulsory contribution"). we can call InterLoire a French wine administration body, as it is paid by the taxpayer, and it has its equivalent in every French region. Like all the tax-levying French administrations, it has raised its fees continuously along the years, for a result that many find dubious (is there a rating agency out there to downgrade this administration ?). There's no way for the wineries to refuse to pay this "voluntary compulsory contribution", but Olivier Cousin thought one day that enough was enough, and he decided that there was no valid reason for this instutionalized lobby to extort money for a service he didn't have in return. Major wine magazines and writers have been following the issue with concern, especially that the vigneron being targetted is particularly active to revitalize the quality of wines in the Loire and Anjou. Decanter, Food & Wine, and even Jancis Robinson among others lamented about how the French administration could go this far against Olivier Cousin.

Let's note that an organized front against this extortion system is building up, as you can check with this Non aux CVO group, which gathers vignerons refusing the compulsory tax in the benefit of an administration that pretends to defend the interests of wineries but first of all lives on their back. In Bordeaux, Paul Barre and a few vignerons are organizing themselved to sue this administration and get the refund of 5 years of CVO (voluntary-compulsory contribution). Read this article in French.
The CVO extortion system weighs on different types of producers, and there is a similarly-instutionalized administration for forest owners, as you can see in this document. The linked document even begins with a tortuous explanation to try to justify the dichotomy in this "voluntary compulsory contribution" term. Would this administration feel a breeze of revolt coming ? Horse tails I shot these picture while Olivier was doing his routine with the horses, not paying attention to what I was doing with my camera. I think that you can feel in these pictures the osmosis between these lovely albeit huge animals and their master. They're obviously well taken care of, and there's plenty ogf good grass to eat in this prairie right under the village when Olivier doesn't bring them in the vineyard to pull the plow.
Like Olivier says, preparing the horses and subsequently walking behind the plow is a good physical exercise, and he doesn't need any gym club to stay in shape. Once walked into the van , the horses will patiently wait for the short drive to the vineyard. It's always hard to imagine what a horse can think, it looks so detached on things, but I guess that they understand that they're on their way to work, even if a relatively-easy work for their physical constitution. + + + As we were discussing these labelling issues around the kitchen table while sipping his excellent Gamay Nouveat (a gorgeous, easy-drinking fruity thirst wine), Olivier Cousin told me that there was a problem with wine labels : while for a can of vegetables you're obliged to say on the packaging what's inside, here with wine there should be nothing to tell the consumer what he's buying and going to eat. It's like if you sold canned vegetables with "vegetable" printed on the outside, leaving the consumer clueless about the type of vegetable he's buying, carrots or broccoli for example. He says that originally it was designed to prevent the big négoce from changing the labelling of their table wines overnight for better-selling variety names, with no regard to the real nature of the original variety the wine was made from. But Olivier adds that for a small winery it's nonsense to impose such restrictions, the vineyards used by the winery are there in the open, and trying to sell tons of Pinot Noir if the vigneron had only two rows of it couldn't pass. There's a natural limitation in fraud possibilities for a small winery, and these table wines rules are not adapted to the new type of winemakers who chooses this down-the-ladder labelling. Almost done After driving the horses a short distance between the grazing prairie and the vineyard, Olivier Cousin helps them get out of the van by pulling them gradually back into the open. He knows his horses well and looking at him moving these big animals with care makes you understand the value of mutual interaction and complicity.
The brown horse is the first to begin to step back, but they'd stay like that, two feet in, two feet out undefinitely if Olivier didn't help them move further by pulling their tail. There must be the quiet intimacy in there or some remaining hay to eat, because they're taking their time to get out...
Come on folks, there's a bit of walking and pulling for you, don't you remember why we came here ? Although they're plowing every year at the same season, the dry autumn delayed the first plowings, the earth being too dry and tough under the surface. Instead of going with the horses in october, Olivier had to wait mid november to begin the work and, well, the horses may have been induced into believing that they would be spared their exercise this year... + + + Olivier Cousin, who had been passing the agreement for years for his wines and labelling them under the Anjou Appellation, stopped doing that when he realized that it didn't mean anything valuable anymore, the Appellation wines being allowed to get chaptalized for example, or to get made through lots of deceptive manipulations and additives use. But labelling his wines under the Vin de Table label didn't mean that he wanted to leave his customers in the dark, and in his mind they owed to be informed about what they were getting in the bottle. So in all his harvest declarations [ the déclarations de récolte is one of the hassles/paper work that the French administration imposes on vignerons, actually harvest data to be collected for the French Customs ], Olivier indicated also all his parcels even though he was labelling as Vin de Table, because he knew that some day the bureaucracy would look for him. Indicating the individual parcels in addition to the variety volumes could help prove he was in his own right.
He says that the AOC could have a future, if the way people were working under the label was really qualitative. Olivier Cousin says that René Renou, who lived close from here, had had the idea to create an "Appellation d'Excellence" above the present-day Appellation, it would be an upper-tier Appellation where the grapes would be grown organicly, harvested by hand and vinified without additives [in short, like the wines made by the new generation of vintners who prefer not to make formatted wines]. This would really mean something valuable again, but the Appellation as it is today is not playing the role in terms of quality. Walking to the Cabernet-Franc vineyard Now it's time to work. Romeo, who is still partly in the van looks back to see why he's been left quiet for now, like to say, hey, didn't you forget me ?. He shouldn't be anxious, he's the one who will pull the plow this time, his brown companion will be just grazing on the side for an unexpected respite. These two horses have a completely-different work style, the brown being more nervous and providing immediate power while Romeo, the white horse is working at low pressure but on a continuous pace, which is very valuable for certain type of soils or tasks. Olivier says that it's a horse with a blood pressure of 2 (2 de pression, meaning that it's very quiet and relaxed, which is what he needs when he makes this type of plowing, named in French chaussage.
The other nice thing to watch is when the horse gets its apparel, these leather harness and things to which the walk plow will be attached. It's like a father dressing a huge baby, lovely...
Olivier told me that his grandfather never used weedkillers, he was actually very suspicious of these products. Olivier, who was very young then and rensented the difficulty of having to plow to get rid of the weeds, and he pointed to the vineyards of the other growers, saying to his grandfather : wouldn't it make more sense to do like them ? this would spare us this hard work to control the weeds. But his grandfather stood firm, and insisted to keep working the old way, adding that at the end, these products were poison and that he didn't want them in his vineyard. Of course with time, Olivier understood the common sense of his grandfather, and he is happy to have gone through this training. Now he also uses gooses to trim the weeds and the grass, very efficient, he says. + + + You must know that Olivier Cousin made Appellation wines during 25 years (Anjou Appellation), say between 1980 and 2005. He adds that although having made Appellation Contrôllée wines during those 25 years, he never had an actual contrôle about the way he made his wines, other than the agreement session [which isn't a control but a stampel on the formatted taste of the wine], no control on the vineyards or on the things he could have added into his wines [even under the Appellation, he was doing the sames wines as today, anyway], nothing. Since he's labelling under the Vin de Table label, he's contrôlé all the time by the various French administration, like a revenge on his freedom. He got the Customs (which in France are in charge of checking the alcohol & wine producers), the MSA, the Repression des Fraudes (also known under the acronym of DGCCRF). In short, accept the Appellation system and everything will go smooth, even if you stuff your vineyard with weedkillers and your wine with additives, but if you dare to challenge the system and the extortion scheme of the self-appointed wine administration, they'll go after you. There is indeed something of that nature in the relentlessness with which these administrations focused on this small winery. Let's go, Romeo Now the horse is ready and it's time to sweat a little bit between the rows. The vineyard here is Cabernet-Franc, or, if you prefer, Pur Breton...After this long drought that delayed the plowing, there has been a welcomed rain a few days ago, but Olivier Cousin said that he had to wait for the water to recede, so that the earth gets the right texture, a bit humid but not too much. And in this particular vineyard he thinks that he could have waited a bot more. On his steeper plot just under the village, the soil is already drier because the plot has a natural drainage because of the slope.
Romeo is like an engine that you must start and let warm up : at the beginning he just stops sometimes in the middle of the row, like if wanting to rest and pause for a while. Olivier speaks to him and encourages him to go on, which he does willingly. This is indeed a low-pressure draft horse, but Olivier says that his style of soft but steady pulling is particularly adapted for the type of plowing he's doing today, a chaussage, which is the plowing near the vineroot, a slice of earth being cut open on the side. + + + Olivier Cousin began to stop paying the "voluntary-compulsory contribution" to the Loire-wines administration in 1992 and he explains me why : at this time the Loi Evin, the one forbidding advertising for wine was edicted, and there was also this European rule forbidding fixed, arranged prices for commodities and products. Olivier Cousin considered that InterLoire, the wine administration he was forced to finance, did this kind of price fixing for Loire rosé or other types of wines, encouraging low quality and mass production. He was of course sued by the administration for refusing to pay this compulory tax for a service he didn't get in return, as the Loire wine administration lobbied for supermarket wines. It must be said that the "voluntary-compulsory contribution" is levied only on wines sold under an appellation, so when he put all his wines in vin de table (in 2005), he escaped the forced tax from then on. But that left the years between 1992 and 2005 and the administration/plaintiff was determined to have him pay the back taxes, plus the costs and lawsuit expenses. Good plowing team I walk ahead of the horse, with in the back of my mind the hope that it'll not make it stop by curiosity. No, Romeo has found its rhythm now, and the blade passes safely along the vines + + + This suit against Olivier Cousin regarding the unpaid taxes for the InterLoire wine lobby lasted 15 years. A vigneron working on 7 hectares (compared with a total of 20 000 ha for Anjou) was thus the target of a long battle from the part of the appellation administration. He had some favorable rulings and then negative ones in appeal, plus the Court of Cassation was also appealed and here too he sometimes won and sometimes lost his case. At one point he decided to stop, because the whole thing was beginning to be costly, as each time he paid not only for his lawyer but for the other side's expenses alike. All along these years, this fight against the administration cost him roughly 30 000 € including the back fees for the "voluntary-compulsory contribution".

Then he got this other enforcement administration on his back, the DGCCRF, for the crime of pretending on what was supposedly his web page, that he was making Appellation wines when he didn't have the right to, as vin de table. The Fédération Viticole of Anjou, for which the Internet must be some alien thing it has no clues about, saw a web page about Olivier Cousin alluding to the Anjou appellation and denounced Cousin to the DGCCRF (read the page on the right to believe it - click to enlarge). The problem is that Olivier Cousin has no website, and hasn't any clue on how to make one. The incriminated page is actually a web page made by someone (Roger Clairet) who did this on this own to help make Olivier's wines known, and Olivier Cousin can't be responsible for a web page he doesn't control. It's like if a vigneron was sued for an article written on Wineterroirs, can you believe that ? It seems that the people at the DGCCRF have no clue either of how the Internet works, and they based their repressive actions on the face value of this denounciation letter and this web page. But the DGCCRF was even more ridiculous in its ignorance of the web-related issues : it asked indded to Olivier Cousin to take this page off the web ! Great example of incompetency indeed, paid with our tax money. Olivier still tried to ask the webmaster to delete this web page, but the guy told him that the page was no more, and that it was a mystery why it was still online... So, the DGCCRF went further and its squad descended on the winery itself, finding bottles with improper labelling for a table wine status. At the time, he had printed "Anjou Pur Breton" on the labels, and they pinned him down for that, opening another front of repression against him. There were several articles in the local newspaper about Olivier Cousin and in one article, the man who signed the denounciation letter, the head of the Fédération Viticole of Anjou, Patrice Laurendeau, was interviewed and defended his fight for enforcing the prohibition of the use of "Anjou" upon vignerons like Olivier Cousin. Look at the newspaper on the left, there's a bright irony here in the way the article is displayed (would there be an undercover rebel in this newspaper ?) : on the opposite page from the one with Mr Laurendeau's intervention, there's a large advertising for a supermarket chain (Super U) promoting proudly the Anjou products. I think this sums up what is going on here with the flak targetting people like Olivier Cousin : get the message, folks : the supermarkets' formatted products are perfectly OK for displaying Anjou in big letters, but we'll use all the might of the law to crush any vulgar table-wine vintner daring to print Anjou on his real wines... The action The video above shows the first row being plowed by Romeo that day. The horse is taking its time and pausing, that's really like Olivier says, a horse with a blood pressure of 2. We should all work this way, the world would certainly be better, no hurry, just take your time and stay cool, everything is going to be fine. Working with animals can teach us a lot in this regard, and when you look at the serene calm perspiring through the eyes of these eyes, isn't there a better way to relativize everything that may come your way ? I love also the ways he calls him, like gros père, fils, fiston, or bonhomme.
Several times, Olivier would stop on certain rows where there were remaining Cabernet-Franc grapes, and he would pick some for Romeo. These grapes weren't ripe at harvest and were left behind, and in the mean time they riped properly, at a perfect schedule for this oversized amateur. He's gulping the presented clusters so fast that I couldn't catch the action, and this picture is the only remaing testimony of his impressive appetite. + + + Actually, when he stopped passing the agreement for the appellation wines and labelled all his winers as table wines, this was in 2005. Before that time he was making operfectly legally red Anjou and Coteaux du Layon, and passed the agreement without difficulty. After 2005, he kept indicating the variety of the wine in a corner of the table-wine label, which isn't allowed for this labelling status. He argued to the DGCCRF that this was an information he owed to his customers who might not like such or such variety and deserved to know what they were paying for. He lost this suit also, and the administration pointed 9 offenses, about improper labelling, the lack of cahier de cave (cellar stock document) or the lack of the pregnant-women icon. The DGCCRF went further, from what Olivier Cousin learnt, and they made analysis of the wines to find traces of pesticides in order to challenge his organic certification, and they also looked for traces of SO2 to challenge his no-sulphur stance, but they didn't find any. In short, the DGCCRF had a full-blown check of his wines to find something they could rely on for a costly suit. Let's go home, boys Time to go back to the farm, you did a good job, boys. This picture says a lot about the harmony between Olivier Cousin and his serene draft horses. This may be anecdotal regarding the end product, the wine which is being made here, but I'm not sure it's that secondary : Rudolf Steiner, who envisioned realities which lay beyond the visible world, had insisted that in order to have the right nutrition value and vibration level, vegetables have to be grown in real farms with all its farm animals, and he said that not because of a fashionable ecologist thinking, but based on deeper ground observation. + + + Olivier Cousin being forced to delete Gamay or Pur Breton from his table-wine labels, he backed down : Now, you'll not see Gamay anymore on his table wines (except for the remaining bottles in circulation), you'll see Yamag. His table wine made with Cabernet Franc was labelled with "Pur Breton", Breton meaning Cabernet Franc for knowledgeable insiders, which provoked the ire of the wine police. No problem, from now on, there will be only a cuvée mention on these bottles : Le Franc. He used to print on the back label a few lines explaining his work philosophy under the words "L'Ethique du Domaine", which also provoked the ire of the wine police, a vulgar table-wine vintner daring mention that the wine was made in a respectable Domaine, what a shame ! No problem here again, Olivier prints from now on the words "L'Ethique de la Maison" on his back label. Same for "Mis en Bouteille à la Propriété", this mention is forbidden. Again, how a vulgar table wine would ever dare to display it's been bottled in a real winery ? No problem, Olivier will print "Mis en Bouteille à la Cave"from now on, and they can't say anything because the law they're based o to enforce their policing of the table-wine vintners just forbids mentioning of terroir, propriété and domaine for these wines. It's not clear if the piqued administration will stay put (it's technically legal) or step up the pressure...
Speaking of the domaine mention he can't print, he says with a smile, they're right, I'm not a true domaine, real domaines have a neat paved courtyard with a parking lot and a tasting room with spitting buckets and public toilets, and he has nothing of the sort... Thirsty horses Now we're all back at the wine farm (no domaine, please) and we're all going to drink a bit (my next story will be about the cellar visit), but the workers got to drink first, and they do it simply in the large drinking bowl in the courtyard, right near the barn where Olivier uses to store all his plows and where he has his worshop to fix his tools. This room was a real mess but you could see that walk plows and draft horses are a full-time job by themselves, it's obviously not just, like, I'm going to have fun with the horses, will you answer to the phone... + + + Olivier Cousin tells me about the Hacquet family, who was running an organic farm near there at Beaulieu sur Nahon. They were producing wine among other farm pructs, eggs etc, and they were the first to be refused the appellation at the agreement session. At that time, this was long time ago, the organic certification people considered this was very bad news and were reconsidering the label for this wine farm in spite of the respect of the organic rules. Today, it's completely different, the organic certification has become more important than the appellation, and his clients for example are more interested in the mention Vin issu de l'agriculture biodynamique than of any appellation he could add on the label. He adds that the appellation rules are enforced by the same people who trick their wines with all sorts of additives. Under the AOC, you can virtually put everything you want in your wine, plus the yields have been up, and almost every year there's a demand to soften the rules for this or that reason, either for chaptalization or surplus yields. This Romeo is getting more attention than me... Time to sleep, boys, grownups need to enjoy the end of the day and drink a few glasses in the cellar... This old shed has everything a civilized horse needs, it's not too big, there is hay at easy reach, and it's so cozy, I'd love cocooning there if I was a horse. Do animals make a difference between an old, small, authentic shed with a couple of centuries of patina and an oversized, bland stable designed by productivist engineers ? I'm sure they do, and these details are not neutral. + + + Speaking of yields allotments in the AOC, Olivier Cousin tells me of a detail I didn't know : the PLC, for Plafond Limite de Classement. Listen, this is another weird thing : For example, if you are entitled according to the appellation rule to get yields of up to 40 ho/ha, you have a PLC which goes up to 50 ho/ha, which means that you can let your vineyard piss wine at huge yields, you just take the equivalent of 40 ho/ha for the AOC bottling, and you're allowed to vinify the remaining volume as Vin de France (table wine), which makes literally a joke of the supposedly-qualitative appellation. It's because of this sort of things that he considers that the appellation administration and system has failed completely and that the appellation labelling is doomed to be used primarily by the supermarket wines. Olivier Cousin and his family I also met Olivier's family, beginning with his wife Claire, and his son Baptiste (who is more and more in charge) with his girlfiend Marylou. Wonderful people.
An amusing thing Olivier tipped me about, it's that Patrice Laurendeau and the Anjou-appellation people are after another producer, it is Anjou Cola, a local version of Coca Cola. Olivier says that AOC wines being mostly industrial wines, he understands that they view this Anjou Cola as a dangerous competitor challenging their own production, but then again, why go after him, his table wines don't compete in any possible way with industrial wines, and when you taste them, there's no way you can be mistaken...
Olivier Cousin says that as a vigneron, with only 7 hectares, he never got subsidies like so many farmers are reliant on, he's making maybe 25 000 bottles a year and sells the whole production without problem, in France and overseas, like 10 000 in the US, 10 000 in Japan, 2/3000 in Denmark, 2/3000 in the UK and 5000 in Paris, roughly. He could even sell more if he had more wine, and he is doing more for the fame of the Anjou wines in the world than many, all this without subsidies. If the appellation people hadn't bee after him, he would not have challenged their position, he sold wines under Anjou or Coteaux du Layon appellation without problem, but now that he's making the same wines as table wines, he's considered out of the norms, when he's doing exactly the same wines (actually slightly better) than when he passed the agreement, go figure...
Speaking of the foreign markets, I must say here what Olivier told me : when his bank account was blocked by the administration to force him to pay for the last suit he lost, he discovered it suddenly without prior notice : the account was frozen and empty. He reached to his importers and this was an immediate move of solidarity, each either paying back pending bills, or paying in advance for a delivery which was not yet arrived, ordering pallets they hadn't planned, or adding a bonus to bills they were paying. Kudos to Jenny & François (United States), Rosforth (Denmark), Oenoconexion (Mr Ito - Japan) and Cave de Pyrène (United Kingdom). The money was wired almost instantly and the account was unlocked.
Next story : down to the cellar...

Olivier Cousin 7 rue du Colonel Panaget 49540 Martigné Briand phone +33 2 41 59 49 09 I'm looking for an email address which works (this one was not working, i think)

Note for the DGCCRF : this is not Olivier Cousin's webpage, please don't ask me to delete it or modify its content. Or like Joe would have said : My lawyer wants me to specify that most of this site is true, but some of it is fictional, and I often forget which part is which.

Comments

[Brendan Stater-West]

Once again you bring light to the dark reality of modern-day wine-making. Thank you for enchanting us with your witty and truthful presentations of the real wine-makers in France. It was great meeting you last thursday! Take care, Brendan.

[Richard Ewen]

This was an extremely interesting article you have composed with two themes. I began reading to follow the adventure with the horses but got really wound up with the audacity and ignorance of the "wine enforcers". As an annual visitor to France who uses French subject matter for my paintings, I have witnessed a lot of rigidity in the regulations inside and outside of the winemaking industry and I view this struggle with an eye on similar struggles in many countries between the outdated and controlling establishment against the small businessman with a sense of quality and ethics. Transfer this struggle to that of the local food merchant or baker with that of the supermarché. You have a similar conflict.
Your web site articles are very well done and your photos or an added asset.

[Nico scheidt]

Congratulations for this exquisite, marvel of a post, your blog is a very precious source of information and a great read, which is rare. Thanks.