The City Boy & the LSD Vineyard

The story of Martin Hirsch is a story of the city and the soil — of a young man who spent nearly a decade in Frankfurt working in media and pouring wine at the restaurant Emma Metzler, only to discover that the wine that moved him most was not the polished, conventional kind, but the wild, honest, living kind. It was at Emma Metzler that he had his first encounter with natural wine — that special moment where the penny drops and, as many who have shared the epiphany will attest, shifts your understanding of what wine could be. The wines he tasted there were not products; they were expressions of place, of vintage, of a vigneron's intuition. And they planted a seed that would take years to germinate.

The catalyst was the pandemic. When Frankfurt locked down, Martin found himself with time to think, and the pull of the land proved stronger than the pull of the city. He returned to Römerhof — a sleepy village in the north of Bavaria, and the family home for many years — and stood in the vineyard his father had tended for decades. His father made wine of the more conventional variety here, but the vineyard itself was unchanged: old vines, Muschelkalk soils, and a silence that spoke louder than any urban noise. "When I stood in the vineyard after so many years in the city again, I felt like on LSD," Martin explains. "A spider descended from me, a deer ran through the lines – there was so much life, and that felt very good in that moment." It was around that time, with his father stepping away from winemaking, that Martin decided it could be possible to make wine of his own.

But Martin is not a man who rushes. Before taking over the family cellar, he did a short internship with Franz Weninger in Burgenland — one of Austria's most respected natural winemakers — to learn the craft from a master of low-intervention viticulture. He returned to Franconia with a clear vision: to convert the family estate to organic farming, to work with the old vines his father had planted, and to make wines that were honest, spontaneous, and entirely without additives. The cellar — a cool, old space beside the family home, previously used by his father for conventional production — was stripped back to essentials. No temperature control. No pumps. No additives. Just grapes, time, and the patience to let the wine find its own voice.

For his debut 2022 vintage, Martin added just 10 mg/l of sulfur to one wine — a cautious step, a beginner's training wheels. But by 2023, he had removed even that, using nothing at all. Not wanting to run before he could walk, he had found his stride. Today, Martin works among a small but growing group of like-minded young winemakers around Kitzingen — an encouraging, collaborative community that is redefining Franconia's place in the natural wine world. Franconia is a region to keep an eye on, and Martin Hirsch is one of the new generation coming up — not with noise, but with quiet conviction, patient craft, and wines that speak with the clarity of a man who found his way home.

The guiding philosophy of Martin Hirsch is expressed in three words: deep respect, patient care, and careful work. His approach to viticulture is based on a profound respect for nature and a patient, careful working method in the cellar. As a small operation, he treats the vines with great mindfulness, working in harmony with the soil to bring out the purity of the grapes and the character of their terroir. With his hands in the earth and his heart in every bottle, his goal is to make the beauty of the vineyard perceptible in every glass. This is not a marketing stance; it is the logical extension of a man who learned by doing, who interned with Franz Weninger, and who refuses to run before he can walk.

The methodology is deliberately simple and rigorously clean. Harvest is entirely manual, carried out by hand across the 2.5 hectares, with grapes collected in buckets. The Silvaner for Plateau is foot-stomped after a short maceration — an old technique that gently breaks the skins without the aggressive extraction of mechanical crushing. The Ruländer for Grubersbuckel is harvested with scissors and undergoes a spontaneous skin fermentation for eight days before gentle pressing. Other grapes are direct-pressed. Fermentation is spontaneous, initiated by the indigenous yeasts that live on the grape skins and in the cellar air of Römerhof. Martin does not inoculate, does not adjust temperatures, and does not force the wine into a predetermined shape.

The additives protocol is absolute: no additives of any kind. No cultured yeasts, no enzymes, no tannins, no sugar, no corrective agents. The wines are not filtered and not fined, preserving their natural turbidity, their living yeasts, and their evolving texture. For the 2022 debut vintage, Martin added just 10 mg/l of sulfur to one wine — a single, cautious step, a beginner's training wheels. But by 2023, he had removed even that, using nothing at all. This demands absolute cleanliness in the cellar, perfect grape health in the vineyard, and a willingness to accept that each bottle will be slightly different from the next. The aging is patient and unhurried — the wines rest in stainless steel or old barrels for just short of a year, developing complexity and a subtle integration that only time can provide.

The cellar is not a technological facility; it is a cool, old working space beside the family home where the wines ferment at their own pace and are bottled with minimal intervention. There is no temperature-controlled tank farm, no laboratory analysis dictating additions, no consultant recommending corrective enzymes. There is only Martin, the grapes, the old barrels, and the patience to let the wine take the time it needs. The result is a portfolio of wines that are honest, spontaneous, and unfiltered — wines that change in the glass, that evolve in the bottle, and that carry the unmistakable signature of a man who traded city life for vineyard life and found that the best way to honour the land is to do as little as possible. As Martin puts it: "With hands in the earth and heart in every bottle, it is my goal to make the beauty of the vineyard perceptible in every glass."

To understand Martin Hirsch, one must understand that he is not merely a winemaker; he is a homecomer, a city boy who found his way back, and a proof that the best wines often come from the smallest beginnings. Martin is not an heir to a centuries-old estate; he is a young man who spent nearly a decade in Frankfurt, discovered natural wine at Emma Metzler, and returned to his father's 2.5 hectares during a global pandemic. The identity of the project is defined by this return: the return to Römerhof, the return to the old vines, the return to the family cellar, and the return to a way of making wine that is honest, patient, and entirely without additives. His philosophy is not a slogan; it is a practice: deep respect for nature, patient care, and careful work.

The identity is also defined by community — the small but growing group of like-minded young winemakers around Kitzingen who support each other, share knowledge, and collectively redefine what Franconian wine can be. Martin is not a lone wolf; he is a collaborator, a learner, and a believer that the natural wine movement is stronger when it moves together. The result is a portfolio of wines that are not merely products but expressions of a homecoming — each bottle a testament to the conviction that wine should be alive, unpredictable, and honest. The wines are made for the curious drinker, the natural wine bar, and the believer that wine should be fresh, vital, and mineral.

The future of Weinbau Martin Hirsch is tied to the continued health of his 2.5 hectares of old vines, the deepening of organic practices, and the gradual expansion of a portfolio that already spans light red, white, and sparkling. Martin is eager to go further — to experiment with longer macerations, to explore new expressions of Silvaner and Ruländer, and to obtain ever more natural, textural expressions from the fruit of his own Muschelkalk and Keuper soils. The Vom Siebenerlei will continue to be the welcoming drink, the light red that invites you in. The Grubersbuckel will continue to be the textured white, the Pinot Gris that demands attention. The Plateau Silvaner will continue to be the flagship, the profound white that speaks with the voice of the Muschelkalk. And the PetNat will continue to remind us that wine should be joyful, effervescent, and full of life.

In an age of increasing industrialisation in wine — of global varieties, engineered yeasts, and corporate consolidation — Weinbau Martin Hirsch stands as a compelling alternative, not because it rejects modernity but because it has embraced a deeper modernity: one that values old vines over new plantings, foot-stomping over mechanical crushing, spontaneous fermentation over inoculation, zero sulfur over standardised stability, no filtration over cosmetic clarity, the pared-back cellar over the technological facility, the patient step over the rushed release, the homecoming over the career ladder, and the specific voice of Römerhof over the standardised replication of a global style. Martin Hirsch is not merely making wine; he is proving that a media professional can become a vigneron, that a tiny 2.5-hectare farm can produce wines of world-class honesty, that a wine with nothing added can possess the most profound identity, and that the simplest philosophy — hands in the earth, heart in every bottle — is often the most profound. From the first cautious 10 mg/l of sulfur in 2022 to the zero-additive 2023 vintage: all united in one bottle, one homecoming, one unanswerable argument for the possibility of authentic, organic, unfiltered, hand-made, passionately honest wine from the Muschelkalk and Keuper heart of Franconia.