About Hanging Rock Speckle Park Beef
Beef available through Cellar Door & home delivery
Hanging Rock Beef is produced from cattle grown on our estate property 'Jim Jim'. It's 190 acres in all, with 20 acres allocated to vines and another 20 acres to the winery and gardens. The rest of the property is allocated to cattle paddocks and bushland...not a lot of land in the cattle world. As a result we only dedicate 12 head of cattle a year for beef (and yes the cattle does literally walk amongst the vines), just enough to sell through our Cellar Door, our Beef Box deliveries and select restaurants on occasion. See here for more info on our refrigerated home delivery service.
All of our beef is all 2-year-old, tender and we unashamedly say, some of the tastiest and most flavoursome beef you will ever enjoy - it's high-end, restaurant quality beef.
How do we do it? Well put simply, with the highest possible standard of animal welfare – our animals live happy lives in a completely stress-free environment, all the way through. Their feed has no added hormones or growth promotant antibiotics, and there’s not an intensive feedlot in sight – they just roam the pastures in and around our vineyard.
Apart from our cuts of meat, we also team up with Monsieur Pierre in Kyneton, who make the world's best Hanging Rock Beef pies, and with Bologna Smallgoods, who create our delicious Hanging Rock Beef Bresaola, Pastirma and Pastrami.
To stay up-to-date on the availability of our beef, beef box deliveries and promotions, make sure you join our Hanging Rock Beef Club.
Why Speckle Park Cattle?
It all started when John and Ann Ellis were visiting the Royal Melbourne Show. They walked into the cattle arena just as the Speckle Parks were being judged. Initially the look of the animals caught their eye, however after talking to some of the breeders and finding out how great the meat was they decided that they would buy a bull- his name is Jim.
From there the herd has grown - we now have a small herd of pure bred speckle park cattle with a number of cross-bred cattle which will mostly be sold as meat. We have found the animals to be a joy to own. They are gentle and have great personalities.
Speckle Park beef is exceptionally tender, has great marbling as well as even fat cover.
Our Beef Moto
John, Ann and their family have always had a passion for good quality meet but has always found it frustrating that the tracability in the industry makes that hard to find. Their daughter Ruth had always thought that if she wasn't going to be in wine (the industry in which she grew up) then she would want to market beef. For her, when she buys a bottle of wine, she wants to know as much about it as possible and it seems that many other people do too. We want to know where the vineyard is, the way the wine was made, what vintage and variety it is and even what food would go well with it.
Why don't we ask the same questions of our beef?
It is for this reason that every piece of Hanging Rock Beef you might buy has as much detail as we can give you, including questions not often answered, such as:
- How old was the animal?
- How long was the carcass hung for?
- Where did it grow up?
- Is it a cross or pure bred?
- Best wine matches?
Along with that, we can promise you that we love our cattle and we treat them with the up most respect. We never let them get too skinny and we work very closely with our nearest local abattoir to make sure that the animals go through as little stress as possible.