Wine-fed Okanagan: The Next Great Beef?

It looks like some folks in British Columbia are aiming to give purveyors of Kobe beef a run for their money. If they have their way, wine-fed Okanagan beef may soon be turning up next to Japan's prime bovine on the menu of high-end steakhouses.

That's right, "wine-fed" cattle -- as in, each cow gets a liter of Okanagan Valley red wine mixed into its feed every day for the last 90 days before it is processed. Yes, it seems strange at first, but when you stop to think about it, red wine and beef are one of the most classic pairings imaginable. What seems even stranger, then, is why didn't someone think of this sooner?

According to the Vancouver Sun (Vancouver is about four hours west of the Okanagan Valley), the genius credit here goes to Janice Ravndahl, a local meat purveyor from the town of Kelowna who also happens to come from five generations of Canadian cattle ranchers.
Oddly, though, Ravndahl's first instinct was to give the cows beer, as she'd seen Gordon Ramsay do with pigs on The F Word. Her brother, however, said no way: beer would cause the cows to bloat. Living in one of British Columbia's premier wine-growing regions, Ravndahl's next logical thought was: vino!

Local gourmet chefs at places like the Mission Hill Winery and the Delta Grand Okanagan resort are raving about the "pre-marinated" beef, which is produced from free-range, hormone-free Angus cattle.

As for the cows themselves, well, if you've only got three months to live, it's hard to judge what's better: a liter of wine a day or, as is the case with their pampered Kobe cousins, regular massages.

In any case, it appears that, come feeding time for Ravndahl's cows, the scene isn't markedly different from your average five o'clock happy hour.

"Once they have [the wine], they're happy to have it again," she told the Sun. "They moo at one another a little more and seem more relaxed. There are a few that lap it up out of the pail. After they've had it for a while, when they see us coming with the pitchers, they don't run, but they come faster than usual."