Marto Manna Rheinischer Landwein 2023

Marto is the label of Martin Wörner, a winemaker from the village of Flonheim in the western Rheinhessen. The Wörner family's connection to viticulture in the area goes back several generations. Martin's grandfather was among the first growers in Flonheim to bottle wine under his own name rather than selling to the local cooperative. When Martin's father took over, wine production was set aside and the family concentrated on organic grape growing and strawberry farming, selling fruit to other producers. Martin returned to winemaking in 2016 after completing stages at two of Europe's most closely watched natural wine estates.

In 2015, Martin worked at Gut Oggau in Burgenland, Austria, with Eduard and Stephanie Tscheppe, and in 2016 at Matassa in the Roussillon with Tom Lubbe, the New Zealand-born winemaker known for his work with aromatic varieties in southern France. Both experiences shaped Martin's approach to fermentation and his understanding of how to work with the aromatic grape varieties that dominate Flonheim's vineyards. His first Marto vintage was 2017. Vivant Selections notes that from an initial 8 hectares, the estate has grown to 13 hectares over recent years, still planted predominantly to the aromatic crossings his grandfather favored, including Bacchus, Müller-Thurgau, Scheurebe, and Würzer, alongside Riesling, Silvaner, Portugieser, and newer plantings of Pinot Blanc, Pinot Gris, and Pinot Noir.

Martin farms organically with biodynamic practices, using cover crops of radishes, beetroot, and turnips, grazing sheep between vine rows, and avoiding tillage. His partner Alanna Lagamba makes wines under her own Vin de la Gamba label and contributes to the work at Marto. Under German appellation law, the village name cannot appear on the label; the rock motif on the Marto bottles is a reference to Flonheim's characteristic sandstone.

On Primal Wine, the Marto range includes Marto Weiss Rheinischer Landwein and Marto Crazy Crazy Pet-Nat. Browse these and more in our best-sellers collection.

Rheinhessen is Germany's largest wine region by area, covering approximately 26,500 hectares in the federal state of Rhineland-Palatinate. It is bordered by the Rhine River to the north and east, and transitions into the Nahe wine region to the west. The landscape is characterized by rolling hills and broad plateau areas, with the city of Mainz at the northeastern edge and Worms to the southeast. Vineyards are planted across 136 villages, with a wide variety of soil types including loess, sandstone, limestone, clay, and volcanic rock depending on location. The village of Flonheim, where Marto is based, sits in the western part of the region and is known for its distinctive red sandstone, which is reflected in the mineral character found across the estate's wines.

The climate of Rheinhessen is among the driest in Germany, with annual rainfall averaging around 500 millimeters and warm summers moderated by the Rhine. This relative warmth has historically made the region well suited to aromatic grape varieties bred for early ripening, including Müller-Thurgau, Scheurebe, Bacchus, Kerner, and Würzer. It also supports indigenous red varieties like Blauer Portugieser, a thin-skinned grape producing light, fresh reds that were widely planted across the region for much of the twentieth century, and the thick-skinned hybrid Regent, which was developed specifically for organic farming for its resistance to fungal disease.

For most of the postwar period, Rheinhessen was associated with inexpensive semi-sweet wines for export. A generational shift from the 2000s onward has seen a growing number of producers move toward dry wines, organic farming, and low-intervention cellaring, with Marto among the most visible of this new wave.

Explore our full German natural wine selection and our light-body red wine collection on Primal Wine.