A cattle farm in B.C.'s Okanagan trying to cash in on the gourmet beef market by feeding its cows red wine has been handed some sour grapes from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.
The CFIA has put a cork in the idea of feeding the Cabernet-heavy blend of Okanagan wine to cows, saying the liquid is just fine for humans to consume, just not bovines.
Farmers Darrel Timm and Janice Ravndahl at Sezmu Farms in Kelowna feed their animals one "cow-sized" glass of B.C. red wine every day until slaughter, the equivalent of a large bottle every day. They say it makes the most succulent and tender AAA steak they've ever tasted.
But the CFIA is telling the farm that even though all the ingredients in the wine are on its approved feeding list individually, the actual wine is not.
"It is a little frustrating," Ravndahl told ctvbc.ca, saying their product is free-range, antibiotic and hormone-free and always gets top marks for safety.
"If you try to do something different you get too much attention and I guess that can be a bad thing."
Ravndahl said it appears the agency takes issue with the sediment inside the bottles, which naturally occurs in the aging process.
"But if they're saying the sediment isn't safe, what does this mean for the wine industry? Wine is always imported with sediment in the casks."
The beef from Sezmu Farms is sold at popular restaurants all across B.C.'s Okanagan, including the bistro at the renowned Mission Hill Winery. The 300-head cattle farm had plans to expand its sales to Metro Vancouver and Alberta this fall.
John Church, a professor at Thompson Rivers University specializing in cattle sustainability, was scheduled to begin researching the effect of alcohol on the cows' nutritional content this fall.
Church believes feeding cows wine may actually lower their methane emissions, lowering the amount of volatile greenhouse gases released by herds.
Contrary to CFIA's concerns about human safety, Church said initial studies suggest a compound found in wine with strong microbial properties may actually make the tipsy cows safer for people to eat.
"One big concern is always food safety, especially E. coli, but we think this could be reduced by feeding them wine – so we wanted to test this."
Feeding animals alcohol to enhance their flavour is a popular and legal process in other countries, including Japan and Germany, where cows and pigs are finished with beer.
Church told ctvbc.ca that studies in Australia in 2006 and recent testing on Kobe beef in Japan have proved feeding animals' alcohol doesn't have any negative health effects.
"There's certainly been some strong precedents," he said. "I don't see any danger in this at all."
Calls to CFIA were not returned.
