Barreling Through Alsace

I'm Rick Steves and I'm in Alsace in Igusheim, and this is wine country, the Rue du Vin, and I'm with my friend and guide, Jean-Claude. Hello, Jean-Claude. Hello. Jean-Claude, these are big wooden casks. Do they make it this way anymore? No, it's over. You can hardly find coopers here who make wooden casks. Coopers are the people who made these casks? Yeah, coopers who made the casks. So they had to age this wood and hammer these things on there? That's right. In the Alsace region, it's not being done, made anymore. Only with more and more stainless steel. Well, stainless steel, you have less risk when making white wine than in wooden casks. You don't have too much tannin in the wine. Too much tannin? Tannin in the wine. Not like in red wine. Oh, so this is white wine here? White wine mainly, okay? So white wine is better with the stainless steel? Very much better, less risk when you age the wine. So it's an improvement, a modern improvement. That's right. But I like the atmospheric old cellar. Wow, you can smell it. And can you smell it? I can smell it. Let me see you smell it. Wow. Oh, baby, it's nice. Let's go outside and see what it's like in Alsace on the Rue du Vin. We're coming up the cellar, and this is the old place where you taste the wine. Degustation means you can taste the wine. And then here we have the beautiful half-timbered... Hello! Oh, is that right? Well, that's good, but we're just capturing the magic, the color. Thank you, but look at that. You have made my day, too. Happy travels. Just a minute, I'm just making a video. There we go. I'm Rick Steves. We're having a good time in Alsace. Happy travels.