From the beginning of the 1960s to the beginning of the 1980s the Comités d’action viticole (Fighting organizations of winegrowers) were in the news as they claimed responsibility for bomb attacks on official buildings and wine merchants in Languedoc. Then, their clandestine network remained inactive for some years. But at the end of the 1990s, it came back to violence. These variations should be related to the evolving relationship between winegrowers’ unions and officials. In order to put under scrutiny the mechanisms that lead to violent acts, we cross two levels of analysis. We shed light on the means by which the unions shape the group they pretend to represent and intend to defend. At the same time, we pay attention to the competitive process in which these unions are involved when they seek for a recognition by national or EU civil servants. Our study is based on qualitative data gathered in the Aude district.