Some tasty value Pinot Noir

[hotwine]

Guess I might as well chime in at this point. When we say "free range" around here, we mean the animals are raised in large fenced pastures, in which they freely graze native and planted grasses, as opposed to being confined cheek-to-tail in huge feedlots, where they are trough-fed massive doses of growth hormones in their feed. You won't see any grass growing in feedlots; it's all trampled into the mud. An animal raised in large pastures is lean because of the grasses in its diet, and the fact that it's able to exercise. A feedlot animal tends to lose muscle density due to lack of exercise, and it develops large deposits of fat within its muscle tissue.

The grasses that are popular for pasture in this area are Klein, Gordo, Coastal Bermuda and Johnson. They are all leafy green grasses that produce a subtle sweetness to the beef that I find appealing.
OTOH, cattlefeed laced with growth hormones produces heavy animals with what I find to be a dulled cardboardy taste. And the feed itself can consist of all kinds of bulk materials with little nutritional value.

True free-range beef is probably only available from the huge ranches in the Western U.S., Mexico and Argentina, where the cattle are grazed on 100% natural vegetation. I would expect such beef to have a variable flavor that would be determined by whatever plants the animals were able to obtain.

That's why I term our animals "grass-fed"; it isn't fed out on loco weed in a wild pasture, and it isn't stuffed with crap in a feedlot; it's grazed on sweet grasses its whole life (before being sold at auction to processors).