Marto Wines

Marto Wines
Martin Wörner
Flonheim, Rheinhessen

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Martin ‘Marto’ Wörner makes wine in Flonheim, a small village in Germany’s largest wine growing region. Since he took over the family farm in 2017, Marto has been resolute in his commitment to producing wine with zero additives. 

Many of the vineyards were planted by Marto’s grandfather, who grew aromatic varieties in keeping with the trend of the 60s and 70s. The wine scandal of the 80s, when several Austrian wineries illegally added a toxic substance to their wines, had a huge impact on Germany’s wine industry and amid drastically depleted sales, Marto’s father started selling his grapes and began growing asparagus alongside raspberries, cherries and strawberries for fruit wine. With strawberry wine as the main business, the vineyards essentially skipped a generation, giving Marto a certain freedom when he began working towards the 10 hectares of vines he farms today. 

Marto found his wine studies largely disheartening and was frequently told that little could be done with aromatic varieties, but internships with Gut Oggau, Austria, and Tom Lubbe of Matassa, France, were the beginning of an exciting new chapter. Big discussions around wine and biodynamic farming combined with the taste of the wines themselves (neither winery uses additives) gave Marto the inspiration to produce his own, focussing on healthy vineyards rather than popularised varieties — what he playfully refers to as Grand Cru farming.

Marto’s wines have held their own for years now. Sipped and celebrated in wine bars and restaurants, and savoured alongside many a home-cooked dinner, they are distinguished not only by a delicate balance of lightness and complexity, but by the sandstone rock featured on the bottles. Intent on making wine that shows its origin, Marto found himself prevented by German law from using the name of the village on the labels. Resolute in his commitment to producing pure, additive-free wines, Marto’s wines are unfiltered, unsulphured, and deemed atypical for the area. Suspended in shifting forms, label to label, the rock remains — a nod to Flonheim and its characteristic terroir.