Few young German vintners have shaped the country's natural wine scene as quickly as Martin Worner. Since his first harvest in 2017, Marto has become a reference point for a whole new German wave, the wine many of his peers cite as the one that showed what was possible.
Backstory
The estate sits in Flonheim, in Rheinhessen. Martin's grandfather was a local pioneer, one of the first growers in the village to bottle and sell under his own name rather than deliver grapes to the co-operative. Martin's father turned to fruit farming instead, but kept the vineyards alive. Martin took them over in 2015 and released his first Marto wines from the 2017 vintage.
The Region
Rheinhessen is Germany's largest wine region, and Flonheim lies on its rolling hills of sandstone. Those warm, well-drained soils shape the freshness and texture that define the Marto style.
Vineyards & Farming
Martin works roughly 5 hectares using a blend of organic and biodynamic practices, with soil health and biodiversity at the center. He sows cover crops of radish, beetroot, and turnip between the rows, grazes sheep to manage the grasses, and avoids tilling to protect the soil structure.
Winemaking
His methods were shaped by formative stints abroad: 2015 with Eduard and Stephanie Tscheppe at Gut Oggau in Austria, and 2016 with Tom Lubbe at Matassa in Roussillon. The wines ferment with indigenous yeasts and age on the lees in used wooden barrels for a minimum of 12 months. Everything is bottled unfined, unfiltered, and without added sulfur.
The Wines
Marto bottles fresh, energetic whites, skin-contact wines, and reds under the Rheinischer Landwein designation, often from classic Rheinhessen grapes like Silvaner, Riesling, and Scheurebe. The results are pure, vivid, and unmistakably his own.
