Beefy Wine

Sometimes the humour columns just seem to write themselves...

Link: Wino Cows  I don't know why the underline thing doesn't work

Read the story at the above link, then come back here for intellectual discussion.  Go ahead - I'll wait.

The column thus:

An Okanagan rancher has discovered that feeding wine to cows produces meat that is tastier than your usual sirloin.  It also produces livestock that lose their inhibitions and wind up yakking with their sisters all night about how traumatic the delivery of their calf was ten years ago.

I have a beef with this.  The meatiest of my many concerns regards etiquette at wine tastings.  Cows are new to wine - they don't know about spittoons or what the bread is for or anything.  They just drink till they're tipsy and then slobber and whiz all over the place.  Kind of like Australians, come to think of it. 

I'm kidding, of course.  I mean Edmontonians.

In my opinion, bingeing bovines need much more tasting.  Testing, I mean.

We need to provide twelve-hoof programs for these downtrodden beasts.  For that matter, where will AA meetings be held?  Church basements don’t usually allow cows on the premises, live Christmas crèche scenes excepted (and won’t it be amusing to have plastered cows picking fights with the other animals and barfing their Vin de Cud all over the manger once per year?). 

From a business perspective, will this feeding trend create a new sector of the local economy, catering to the cattle tourist?  Will we see more wineries with names like Longhorn Creek or Hereford Hills?  If it leads to wider aisles in china shops and wine stores then I’m all for it.  Well done!

Burning questions remain, however, particularly for restaurant patrons.  Do you want a bottle of Charolais Chardonnay with your meal?  How about a Red Angus Reisling?

Are you prepared to accept the pairing opinion of a Simmental Sommelier at your local eatery?  Do you really think he’ll recommend the mouth-watering steak when it happens to be his cousin?  “This wine is a terrific accompaniment to…fish,” he’ll say.  Every time.  That is what is at steak.  Stake – excuse me.

This being BC, wine-fed beef will inevitably lead to dope-raised chickens.  Mellow yet plucky hens, fed a daily supplement of ‘grow-op grain’, will soon be the rage among chefs.  There they'll be (the chickens), loafing about their free ranges, stoned out of their beaks, staring at the clouds, thinking deep chicken thoughts, chief among them "What are the enormous white things that come out of my cooter every morning?"

Restaurants will serve ‘Baked, baked chicken, with special brownie stuffing.’  They’ll just lay on your plate, grinning in their own chickeny way.  Wow, man.

I’m telling you, this wine-feeding scourge must be stomped out.  Put the entire idea out to pasture, where it belongs.  Wine is for humans, not animals (NHL players excepted).  I think authorities should give this rancher a good grilling. 

The ruminants of society must know this is wrong.

We need to preserve our region’s brand as a grade ‘A’ tourist destination and make our visitors welcome, not herd them like cattle through the chutes of monetary gain, into the silos of history, never to return to our granary of democracy.     

“Waiter!  I’ll have the half-baked metaphors done medium-well for an appetizer, and the ’96 Chateau Hoof de T-Bone as the main course.    I’d like some moo wine too, please.”