Unravelling the Cousin case

Since I posted rather speedily on Sunday night it's become clear that the Olivier Cousin case is quite a bit more complicated than it first appeared.

The trigger might have been the cheeky description of his wine as an AOC (Anjou Olivier Cousin) for which he says his distributors are responsible, but there's history, as they say. As Jim Budd explains on decanter.com today Cousin has chosen not to label his wines AOC since 2005 because he rejects the methods by which they are produced. But he still in their view, owes them money as a past member of the association, a case they've successfully prosecuted in the courts. Cousin hasn't paid and his bank account has been frozen.

More seriously - and ludicrously - they're after him for labelling his Cabernet Franc ‘Anjou Pur Breton’, the local name for Cabernet Franc. This has incurred the wrath of the DGCCRF - Direction Générale de la Concurrence, de la Consommation et de la Répression des Fraudes - which has charged him with bringing the appellation into dispute. If convicted he could face a fine of €37,500 or up to two years in prison. Apparently the prosecutor is now deciding whether to pursue the case.

I'm not totally surprised to hear of this saga. When I asked if the CIVL (the body that represents Loire producers) could arrange some producer visits this time last year they were enthusiastic until they saw my suggested list which included a number of natural winemakers (understandable in the Loire). They then came back and said they were very sorry but it was impossible because all the producers concerned - all of them - were busy harvesting. (I went anyway and went round a number of producers with Jim Budd). I had no such problems with the CIVB who arranged a comparable set of visits in Burgundy a couple of weeks later or the CIVA in Alsace earlier this summer who arranged for me to see a number of biodynamic winemakers along with more conventional ones.

I can't think why the people who run the Anjou AOC would want to drive a small producer out of business. I'm sure Cousin is a pain in the butt but there must be more imaginative ways to deal with cases like this which will only grow in number as more winemakers reject the rigid AOC system but still feel they have a right to talk about the place where their wines are made. Frankly the authorities make themselves look ridiculous.

If you haven't already done so do leave a comment on Sylvie Augereau's site Glougueule which now carries over 500 messages of support for Cousin.

Why Olivier Cousin needs your support

Photo of Olivier Cousin by Jim Budd
What is it with the French wine authorities? I've heard tales of them harassing natural winemakers before, not allowing them to use a recognised appellation for their wines because they're 'untypical'.

The latest example is Olivier Cousin in Anjou who decided to cock a snook at the authorities by putting AOC on his bottles - not appellation d'origine contrôlée but Anjou Olivier Cousin. Possibly unwise given French bureaucrats appear to suffer from a sense of humour failure but surely not serious enough to land him in court. He was apparently already in trouble for non-payment of a levy to the body which administers the appellation on the grounds that he disagreed with their aims. According to Jim's Loire which carries a full account of what's been going on he lost his case, has had his bank account frozen and now faces a fine of up to €45,000.

What can one do to help? Well for a start you could leave a comment in support of Cousin on Sylvie Augereau's site Glougueule. The weight of international opinion, including other winemakers and journalists hopefully counts for something. And you could make a point of buying some of Cousin's wine or ordering some next time you go to a natural wine bar as we will be doing in Paris next week.

Surely there are less draconian ways to deal with non-compliance.

How natural wine changes your palate

One of the things I’ve noticed since I started drinking natural wine regularly is how much it’s affected my palate. I can not only spot a natural wine in a tasting line-up but am also much more aware of winemaking practices such as chaptalisation and acidification and of what I now regard as excess levels of alcohol.

I wince at the harsh artificial acidity of a warm climate white and what now seems the excessive dosage of many champagnes which suddenly taste uncomfortably sweet. It’s like the moment when you realise you don’t need that spoonful of sugar in your tea. I really don’t like reds so lush that they taste like a fruit liqueur. I feel the effect the morning after when I drink wines that have commercially acceptable levels of sulphur.

Conversely I love the pure, pristine flavours of many natural whites and the vivid, delicious fruit of so many reds - like eating a bowl of freshly picked berries. It’s got to the stage where the wines we buy for our own consumption are almost all organic or biodynamic or made following similar practices. (I’m not religious about sulphur or certification.)

Is this a problem for a wine writer (for those of you who don’t know I write a weekly column for the Guardian)? I like to think not. Wine writers have probably always had a different taste in wine from their readers if for no other reason that we get to taste a great many more wines. And our passion for wine means we tend to spend more disposable income on it than many of them will choose to do.

Jancis Robinson, for example, has a passion for riesling and I seem to recall her stating that she's not a big fan of Sauvignon Blanc. Tim Atkin has a weakness for white burgundy.

A generation ago patrician wine writers like Edmund Penning-Rowsell would have had a superb cellar made up largely of Bordeaux. Critics who review cars probably drive a more expensive car than their readers. Enthusiasts invest in their hobby.

Your tastebuds also change. I remember in the early ‘90s when I first started taking an interest in wine I was crazy about New Zealand Sauvignon. Now I find the flavours of many of the cheaper examples overpowering and unsubtle. Even in the states there’s a move away from the ‘Parkerised’ reds to which so many producers and consumers were in thrall just a few years ago. The article Eric Asimov wrote in the New York Times last week on the lack of structure of many New Zealand Pinot Noirs almost certainly wouldn't have been written in 2005.

There’s an element of fashion about all this. We don’t drink the same wines as we did just as we don’t wear the same clothes - though I’m obviously waiting for someone (probably my husband) to tell me he still wears the same coat he bought 20 years ago.

So how - if at all - have your tastebuds changed and if so what wines do you like now and which have you left behind?

Duck Soup, Soho: London's newest natural wine bar

The moment I heard that Duck Soup had a natural wine list I was in there. Two days after opening which was speedy, you have to admit.

Not that they bill themselves as a natural wine bar. In fact they told me they intended to list a few natural wines but as chef Julian Biggs (above) put it "once you start drinking natural wine you can't drink anything else."

It's a tiny no-reservations place with a few tables and a long bar, not unlike the hugely popular Spuntino. There's an interview here with Julian about their philosophy which is (sensibly) to create the kind of place they like to eat in themselves.


I like the way the menu's written on a scruffy piece of paper. I had a gorgeous umami-rich open sandwich topped with fresh girolles (rather than the advertised ceps), lardo and Berkswell cheese which went down nicely with a glass of Frantz Saumon Mineral +.


You can see some of their other wines on the handwritten board.


There was also an amazing earthenware pot of pappa al pomodoro which I got to taste as it cooled, drizzled with olive oil and topped with a couple of shavings of parmesan.


Apparently you can also bring along your own vinyl and they'll play it in the bar.

Another recent addition to the London natural wine scene is Antidote which has opened on the site of the former La Trouvaille in Newburgh Street just off Carnaby Street, under the same management, I think. My husband went along last night and said it was just like a Parisian natural wine bar.

He had some charcuterie and a couple of glasses of wine - La Grange Tiphaine, Bel Air Touraine Amboise and Chateau La Coste 2007, Version Nature, a Cab Merlot blend "not like Bordeaux, but with a southern warmth to it, reminiscent of Bandol". The winemaker is Mathieu Cosse of Cahors.

He was full of praise for the bar which I was slight miffed he managed to get to before me. Ah well, can't be everywhere . . .

The extremes of natural winemaking

One of the problems of talking about natural wine, as I've said before, is what exactly 'natural' means. Particularly when you have wines as disparate as these two.

On the one hand you have the simply sumptuous Burn Cottage Sauvage Family Vineyard Pinot Noir 2009 (above, £28.50 Les Caves de Pyrène) which tastes exactly like any other Central Otago pinot noir but for, perhaps, an incredible purity of fruit that belies its biodynamic roots. I can't see anyone failing to be won over - unless, perhaps, they find New World wines like this just too opulent and scented. I'd love to taste it in 2-3 years time.


On the other Thierry Puzelat's Le Brin de Chèvre 2009 (£13.80 RS Wines, £13.99 Les Caves de Pyrène) which is one of the weirdest wines I've tasted for a while. When the bottle was first opened the nose was frankly appalling, smelling of shoe polish and slightly rotten fruit and that slightly cidery character that some natural wines get on the palate. We decanted it a couple of times and it improved marginally but took a couple of days to resemble anything vaguely drinkable.

It's possible that it hadn't been kept at a low enough temperature* but it's not the first time I've been underwhelmed by a Puzelat wine. You had to work hard at it to get anything out of it. We certainly wouldn't have served it to friends.

Your whole attitude towards natural wine could be formed by this experience. If the Brin de Chèvre, which is made from the little known Menu Pineau, was the first natural wine you tasted you'd probably never knowingly drink it again. If it was the Burn Cottage you'd never drink anything else but natural. (If you could afford to, that is . . . )

* It came direct from the importer Les Caves de Pyrène but had been hanging around, unrefrigerated, in our flat for a few weeks.

Good news and sad news

I can't claim to know much about US wine importer Joe Dressner who sadly died of cancer this week but I do know that he did almost more than anyone else to raise the profile of natural wines in the states.

There have been a number of fine tributes* by US wine writers and bloggers including this intensely personal post from Alice Feiring, and affectionate reminiscences from Jon Bonné of the San Francisco Chronicle and Eric Asimov of the New York Times who also wrote a more formal obituary here. He sounded like quite a guy.

And the good news? That two natural wine champions were honoured in last night's Louis Roederer International Wine Writers' Awards. Alice as Online Wine Writer of the Year for her posts on Alice Feiring and Max Allen for his marvellous book The Future Makers: Australian Wines for the 21st century which my husband is currently reading - and so am I when I can prise it away from him. Congratulations to both of them.

*there's also another eloquent one here on Wine Terroirs.

The Dirty Dozen: tasting of the year?

Wine tastings aren't half as much fun as they seem from the outside. They're usually huge, overheated, crowded and full of dull wines. Or, at least, most of them are dull.

The Dirty Dozen tasting was only guilty of one of those crimes - it was ridiculously cramped due, apparently, to the fact that the ceiling of the room it had been booked to take place in at the English Speaking Union had collapsed so it was held in a conservatory at the side whose wooden floor creaked ominously as the several hundred members of the press and wine trade milled around it.

The wines, however, were just thrilling. I started with a selection to which each merchant had contributed 2 bottles and there wasn't a dud one among them.

So who are the (surely misnamed) Dirty Dozen? A group of wine merchants who specialise in artisanal producers including a fair number of organic, biodynamic and natural winemakers. They included some familiar ones to me - Aubert & Mascoli (hardcore natural), Burgundy specialists Flint Wines, Indigo Wines (largely Spain) , London-based Roberson, Bristol-based Vine Trail (very well sourced wines from France) and German specialist The WineBarn, so having a limited amount of time I concentrated on a few I wasn't so familiar with.

The highlight was fortyfive10° which imports Italian wines from family-owned domains, the idea being to deal with estates that have form when it comes to winemaking. The owner Massimiliano Jacobacci states that he looks for "wines that express the history of a region through traditional wine making techniques as opposed to the current trend for wines of immediate accessibility at the expense of complexity and longevity." Or, as he put it to me more simply "We don't do entry level wines. I don't like them and I don't want to sell them."

So their wines obviously don't come cheap but if you want to be blown away dig deep in your pockets and buy a bottle of the stunning Sodi di San Niccolo from Chianti producer Castellare di Castellina, a beautifully crafted blend of Sangioveto and Malvasia Nera and one of the most delicious reds I've tasted this year. (My tasting note says 'heaven'!) The vintage I tried was the 2005 which doesn't seem to be in the market but you can find the 2004 from a wine and events company called A Moveable Feast in which Jacobacci also seems to be involved.

They (fortyfive10°) also supply a number of high profile London restaurants including Chez Bruce, The Ledbury, Polpo, Roka and the River Café.

Anyway I suggest you get yourself on the mailing list of all these importers and make sure, if you're in the trade, that you get to The Dirty Dozen tasting next year. Which I hope will be in a larger room.