We were lucky enough to encounter Martin “Marto” Wörner right at the beginning of his solo winemaking career. At the time, he was 23, having finished his postgraduate stage at Tom Lubbe’s domaine in the South of France. His father, more a farmer of grapes than a winemaker, was in poor health and Marto had returned to his hometown to assume part of the family business. It began with the transformation of an old, decrepit, 300 square-foot cellar right under the house. Adjacent to what were once stables for horse-drawn carriages, the ancient cellar had once served as a beer tavern for merchants passing through the Franco-German border areas. Martin furnished the space with his father’s lapsed stückfasser, a type of Rheinhessen foudre similar to those used in Alsace, along with a few ancient Mosel barrels. His winemaking, at the beginning, registered as a kind of radical intervention in the stale, anti-natural-wine climate of Western Germany. His whites, which consisted primarily of aromatic hybrid varieties considered inappropriate for “noble” winemaking, were picked on the crispy side and macerated, à la Matassa, showcasing their wild perfume. That he baptized this cloudy amber potion “Weiss”, a term normally reserved for a pedestrian white wine, was basically a big middle finger to everyone who told him natural wine would not succeed in the Rheinhessen. 

In the intervening six years, West German wine culture has changed and so has Marto. Though he is too modest to admit it, the flourishing of young natural winemakers in the area owes much to Marto’s influence. Natural winemaking is now in fashion and “Weiss”, like the humble “Vin de France” has become a rallying cry for a younger generation of winemakers. At the same pace, Martin has gone far beyond his early forays into orange wine to explore classical winemaking on his own terms, which precludes make-up and spoofalation. A series of trips to Alsace and Burgundy inspired him to plant Pinot Blanc, Gris and Noir and to revisit his Riesling, which contrary to the early years, is now picked late, directly pressed and left in barrel without topping. His partner Alanna Lagamba, now a winemaker in her own right, influenced him to push harder and further on his Pinot Noirs, to extract more material and to destem. Weiss remains as youthful and wild as ever but it seems obvious that Martin, now 29, and Alanna have their sights set on the long-term of the Domaine.

Here’s a conversation between Josh Eubank and Marto, conducted in May of 2022:

JE: Let’s start by talking a little bit about the history of the region in general and the history of your domaine in particular. 

MW: This region, the Rheinhessen, was never known as a famous place for wine. It was known for agriculture and we also had vineyards because grapes are one of the things that grow here. In my great-grandparents’ generation, these vineyards were mainly for personal consumption. My grandfather realized that to compete in the world of German agriculture he needed to specialize and he chose grapes as his specialty. In particular, he chose to specialize in the production of sweet wines, which were very popular at that time. 

JE: So that’s the period after the Second War, right? 

MW: Correct. During the War there was no sugar in Germany. After the war everyone wanted it. Plus the government gave benefits to farmers who specialized in one thing or another. So it worked out perfectly for my grandfather. 

JE: That’s interesting. Do you see any parallels with the period we are living in now and that of your grandfather? In a sense, you’ve chosen to specialize as well, right? MW: Indeed, we specialized because we saw that natural winemaking was the only possible future for the winery. There was a generalized crisis in German wineries that began in the 1980s and still has residual effects today. My father suffered throughout the crisis and I wanted to take the winery in a different direction. 

JE: What caused the crisis and how did your father react to it? 

MW: My dad was dealt really difficult cards. As I mentioned before, my grandfather had opted for the path of sweet wines, which were really fashionable in the post war period. But in 1985 there was an event in Austria known in German simply as “The Wine Scandal” that had terrible effects for producers of sweet wines. Several producers of sweet wines were found to have adulterated their sweet wines with a chemical that is used in car antifreeze! 

JE: That doesn’t sound very natural.  

MW: Not at all. This chemical, which is toxic, is a type of sugar that makes wine appear sweeter and more viscous, allowing producers to take a short cut. Anyway, once the scandal broke, German sweet wines lost whatever credibility they might have once enjoyed. You couldn’t give them away, neither here nor abroad. My dad understood this early on and decided to switch the entire production of our winery to négoce strawberry wines, which believe it or not remain quite popular in Germany! We kept the family vineyards but in my dad’s time we sold our biological grapes to other producers, since producing our own wines didn’t make any money. 

JE: Why couldn’t you make a living producing your own wines? 

MW: In the Rheinhessen, almost up until the present time, the mentality of winemakers was that you could compete by producing large quantities of dry wine at a low price. This belief corresponded to the means of production: lots of machine harvesting and technological interventions designed to increase yield. Naturally, this was a race to the bottom and drove down prices. At a certain point, maybe a decade ago, people discovered that there was a market for so-called “quality wines”, artisanal if not natural wines, that at least could provide an income to winemakers. 

JE: Tell me more about your personal development as a winemaker leading up to the time when you took over the estate in 2016. I know you worked for Tom Lubbe. What effects did that have on your approach? 

MW: Before I worked for Tom I was in wine school. This was a very conventional program that taught us to look for problems in winemaking and correct them with chemical intervention. They taught for instance that wine without sulfur basically does not exist. It’s not possible. I was totally convinced by this. At the same time, I was constantly tasting wines and trying to think about what made sense in the Rheinhessen. I wanted to do something that was unique to our region. At some point, I tasted a natural wine from Gut Oggau and I saw something was different. Even though I still thought natural wine was impossible, I really didn’t have any better ideas so I went to work with them for a few months out of curiosity. By the end of it, I knew that it was possible to work this way and I wanted to learn more. The people at Gut Oggau suggested that I go work for another year with Tom at Matassa, whom they knew. 

JE: How was working for Tom? What did you learn there? Many people have noted the similarities between Tom’s macerations of aromatic Mediterranean grapes and your Weiss. Is there anything to that? 

MW: As it turned out, that was when everything came together for me. With Tom, I learned a ton about farming. I learned that wine is made in the vineyard. Moreover, I learned a lot about winemaking with aromatic grapes. It’s true that I copied Tom’s techniques a little bit when I came home but over time I also noted many differences between the South and this region of Germany. Since 2016, I’ve been trying to develop an “authentic” style so-to-speak, even though there’s no history of this style of winemaking in our region. I guess you could say that it’s authentic without any history. It’s authentic to myself, even if not to Germany [laughs].

JE: How do you think your style has evolved since that period? 

MW: When I took over the winery, I had no Pinot Noir and barely a half hectare of Riesling. The primary focus was on the aromatic hybrid grapes, such as Bacchus, that my grandfather planted. So at that time, I wasn’t able to do much more than Weiss. Starting in 2017, I started to replant and I chose varieties that I consider natural to the region, including more Riesling and more Pinot Noir. We’re also planting some hybrids in the areas along the forest that are sensitive to illness. The evolution is ongoing. Each year we learn new things and encounter new people. 

JE: During the last few years, you’ve also visited Alsace quite a bit. How has that informed your vision of what is possible in the Rheinhessen?

MW: I’ve learned quite a bit in Alsace. It’s just across the border from here but also very different. There is much more protection in France of the winemaking traditions. In Alsace, there are still winemakers with ancestral knowledge. It’s very inspiring for me. In Germany, by contrast, practically everything has been lost. With the possible exception of Mosel, the winemaking regions have become very modern. Old varieties are ripped out. Working by hand is unheard of. This is particularly true in regions like Rheinhessen, which belongs to the wealthy and highly industrialized region of Frankfurt. 

JE: You even managed to bring home some cuttings from France, right? 

MW: I’ve planted wood from Bruno [Schueller]’s Chant des Oiseaux. 

JE: To change gears, what do you think about the new wines? How do you think they are different from past years? Is there anything you are particularly happy or unhappy about? 

MW: I think every year we are getting better. 2020 was a hot and relatively dry vintage and we learned a lot under these conditions. One thing that I did in this vintage that I picked up in Alsace was to leave more leaf cover around the grapes. In Germany, we are taught to remove most of the canopy once the Spring rains have passed. It turns out that this is a horrible idea for natural winemaking. Aside from helping to keep the PH of the grapes low, the leaf canopy promotes the transfer of nitrogen, which in turn favors natural fermentation. Moreover, longer contact with the plant gives the juice a more profound expression, even if it doesn’t favor big yields. 

JE: Do you think that the 2020s are riper than in past years or maybe ripe in a different way than in past years. 

MW: In the past when it was hot, such as in 2018, I intuitively drew on my experience in the South with Tom, where overipeness is strictly avoided. I was quite scared of making heavy wines. I’m much less concerned about that now than before. Alanna, who has also been a big influence on me, convinced me that it’s simply not possible to make a heavy wine here, even if I wanted to. So, yes, the wines in 2020 are ripe but I think quite balanced as a result of the way we managed our canopy. 

JE: Do you have a favorite wine in 2020? 

MW: Right now, I’m drinking a lot of the Pinot Blanc and the Riesling. I guess they fit into a more “classic” wine context, even if the Riesling shows a little “flor.”

JE: On the other hand, this year’s Weiss is pretty rock-and-roll. 

MW: Yes, but I’ve already drunk way too much of it. 

JE: What’s the context for that one? 

MW: There’s no context.