The barrel master | Made in Germany - Handmade

a good wine needs good storage and that requires a skilled Cooper like Ralph Martin it all begins with the oak stave the stopped by the art is to make sure that the staves are identical and that they fit together perfectly in order to create a beautiful harmonious shape soon our moons you fall off to Athena it takes around 70 of the staves to make a single barrel and depending on the materials use these barrels can cost up to five thousand euros each as if AMD is we've put the individual staves into the hoop so that we have the barrel and its final size and what my colleague is doing now is banging them into a straight line so they're all standing up nicely and can be bent evenly the dart agencies also get all the beading list to get the wood to bend it's heated over an open fire but the traditional technique also serves another important purpose that's just I was four young when the wood is fired it releases aromas that get absorbed by the wine it depends what the client wants a light fine wine with vanilla aroma or something more full-bodied and coffee like with more of a kick we influence that by varying the temperature and the amount of time we leave the wood over the fire when the Favell dawa of foyer we had this done out so killing a mixture of flax and rye flour is used to seal the barrels and it will hold for decades to come Oh inversus it's not only I'm now adding Reed's bullrushes which also help to seal the barrels they're all untreated natural products which is good in the long term if a barrel is left empty for a long period of time Elite Linda hammer Ralph Martin makes between 70 and a hundred barrels of all sizes every year his clients are scattered all over the world from the Rhineland to Chile in South Africa his work is in great demand and he could sell far more than he does he has two apprentices and two trained barrel makers working with him because the industry is so small there are practically no Cooper's on the labour market and it's hard to find other workers willing to retrain besides making sure he has the right personnel Matan has to get hold of premium oak wood he buys it from Germany's only remaining stave making company as in centuries past they split entire tree trunks by hand it's the only way to ensure top-quality staves hello whenever he can the Cooper delivers his barrels personally this wine grower has a 15 hectare vineyard and has already ordered several barrels from Ralph Martin not humans again I should add selected young wine growers in particular are adopting more traditional ways high-tech processes are widespread and they're not interested in mass production they want to give their product the personal touch fact or both the wine grower and the Cooper are happy with the result a well-made wine from a good handmade barrel

Channel: DW News

Views: 140,126

Rating: 4.716475 out of 5

Keywords: wine, wooden barrel, wood, vintners, handmade in germany, made in germany, economics, dw, deutsche welle

Id: cMATR5WZF8k

Length: 4min 21sec (261 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 20 2013