ADVERTORIAL
GAME CHANGER
Marcin Öz used to play bass for The Whitest Boy Alive. But at the height of the band’s fame, he felt like a radical change – and started making organic wine WORDS: JAN WILMS/SABINE NEDDERMEYER
IMAGES: PHILIPP WENTE
We’ve arrived at a vineyard in the south of Sicily, a verdant triangle between the late Baroque towns of the Noto valley, the UNESCO World Heritage City of Syracuse and red wine stronghold Avola. It might not sound like the most obvious place for a well-known hipster, but here is Marcin Öz, formerly of indie band The Whitest Boy Alive, tackling a stretch of stubborn vines. Here, he’s swapped the tour bus that took him across 40 countries and four continents, for a simple mechanic’s overall and an old tractor. Four years ago, when Öz decided to quit his successful career as a bassist, DJ and songwriter, he also left buzzing Berlin behind. “Basically, we had said everything we wanted to say with our music, so once the band realised this, we all agreed to split,” he says.
To Öz, rural Sicily seemed the ideal place for his next plan and life goal: to make his own organic wine. Or rather, to find out if he could meet the challenge of learning one of the world’s oldest crafts. “It was a new adventure, a new challenge”, he admits. “I had no idea what I was putting myself into, not knowing the difficulties. But it was too exciting not to try.” For his experiment, Marcin Öz picked a place with more than 2,500 years of viticulture tradition. In Contrada Buonivini, on seven hectares of limestone soil, he cultivates his grapes using a blend of traditional techniques and high-tech help. And his Vini Campisi label has become known for organic boutique wines of the local Syrah and Nero d’Avola varietals.