Swing 2022 | Orly Lumbreras | Cebreros

Orly Lumbreras spent years as a sound engineer at Radio Nacional de España and presenter of the show Placeres Mundanos on Radio 3 before wine changed his course. He studied viticulture and oenology at the Escuela de la Vid in Madrid, and in 2012, guided by his friend and mentor Alfredo Maestro, he discovered the old Garnacha vines of the Alto Alberche valley in the Sierra de Gredos. That year he made his first 624 bottles — the cuvée Punto G — from a single plot in Navarredondilla (Ávila) at 1,100 metres altitude. He formalised his project in Navalmoral de la Sierra in 2013, and has since balanced his own label with RuBor Viticultores, a partnership with local grower Rubén Díaz in Cebreros, and Adega Sernande, a Ribeira Sacra project he co-founded in 2018.

His vines grow on decomposed granite sand between 1,000 and 1,100 metres, dry-farmed without synthetic inputs. Orly's philosophy is that of the adopted vineyard: he rescues plots on the verge of abandonment — some over 80 years old — and brings them into his project without necessarily purchasing them. Garnacha is the main variety; he also works Albillo Real in Cebreros and, through RuBor, Chasselas Doré for a skin-contact wine. Biodynamic practices since 2015, hand-harvested and bush-vine trained.

In the cellar, Orly intervenes as little as possible: spontaneous fermentations in open vessels, foot-treading, extended macerations with 25–30% whole clusters, and ageing split across old barrels, concrete vats, clay tinajas and chestnut foudres. Sulphites are minimal or absent. Los Besos Que Te Robé is the Garnacha from vines over 80 years old; Punto G is his founding plot in Navarredondilla; MilaGritos blends three parcels of old-vine Garnacha on sandy soils; Sade is an Albillo Real from Cebreros. The musical sensibility of Orly — a radio man before anything else — runs through every name and every label.