The Sound Engineer, the Radio Waves & the Rock & Roll in Every Glass
A boy who spent years feeling wine talk to him through the radio — interviewing great artisans, great vignerons who left their skin for their vineyards — and was transformed, dreaming of transmitting his soul and his Rock & Roll in every glass. Orly Lumbreras studied at the Escuela de la Vid in Madrid, built a passionate, personal winery in Navalmoral de la Sierra in 2013, and now recovers wild, almost centennial vineyards in the most inhospitable and indomitable places of Gredos.
Origin — The Radio, the School of the Vine & the Sparks in Cebreros
Orlando "Orly" Lumbreras was not born into wine. He was born into sound — into the frequencies and wavelengths of radio. For years, he worked as a sound engineer at Radio Nacional de España, the Spanish public broadcaster, where he produced and hosted programmes about wine. Day after day, he interviewed great artisans, great vignerons who left their skin for their vineyards. He felt the wine talking to him through the microphone, through the airwaves, through the stories of men and women who had given everything to a patch of earth. And slowly, imperceptibly at first, he was transformed.
"I was transformed, dreaming of being able to transmit my soul and my Rock & Roll in each glass of wine, make enjoy, make vibrate, and recover those wild, almost centennial vineyards that I found in the most inhospitable and indomitable places of Gredos." He prepared himself. He studied at the Escuela de la Vid in Madrid. And in 2013, he began to build a small winery — very passionate, very personal — in Navalmoral de la Sierra, a village in the Sierra de Gredos less than an hour from Madrid, where Garnacha had been growing on granite since before anyone kept records.
That same year, he joined forces with Rubén Díaz, a true son of Cebreros who had abandoned a career as a land-use broker — a job that had required him, on occasion, to counsel clients to rip out old vineyards — to devote his life to the region's sacred old vines. Rubén and Orly officially teamed up as RuBor Viticultores in June 2013 while sampling the grapes of a high, sandy Garnacha vineyard in Cebreros. They described the fruit as small and concentrated, with brilliant acidity and "electric" tannins — unlike any Garnacha either had tasted. "They saw sparks and RuBor was born."
Orly's own project ran parallel. While Rubén handled the connections and the Cebreros fruit, Orly focused on Navalmoral de la Sierra — recovering abandoned espinos (hawthorns), the local term for the tiny, bush-trained vineyards that dot the Gredos mountainside. He started with a handful. Today, he has recovered roughly 30 — each one a small act of defiance against depopulation, against forgetting, against the gravity that pulls old vines toward forest.
The Place — The Inhospitable Gredos & the Indomitable Ribeira Sacra
Orly's world is split between two of Spain's most dramatic wine landscapes: the Sierra de Gredos, a massive granite mountain range west of Madrid where old Garnacha clings to slopes at 900-1,100 metres, and Ribeira Sacra, the vertiginous slate canyons of Galicia where Mencía has grown since Roman times. In both places, the vineyards are wild, almost untamable, and increasingly abandoned as young people flee to the cities.
~30 Recovered Hawthorns in Gredos
In Navalmoral de la Sierra and the surrounding Gredos hills, Orly has recovered roughly 30 small hawthorns — tiny bush-trained vineyards of 70-80+ year-old Garnacha and Albillo Real, many almost centenarian. These are not orderly estates. They are scattered, steep, difficult to access, and planted on decomposed granite and sandy soils at high altitude. Depopulation had left them to the forest. Orly brought them back, one by one, working with the owners who were too old to maintain them.
Granite, Sand & Altitude
The Sierra de Gredos is predominantly granite and decomposed granite (arena) — poor, free-draining, mineral soils that force vines to struggle. The altitude creates a dramatic diurnal shift: hot days for phenolic ripeness, cold nights for acidity. Orly's vineyards sit among the most extreme in the Gredos, where the fruit is small, concentrated, and electric. The sandy soils of Cebreros, in particular, produce Garnacha with a brilliance and tension that is unmistakable.
Ribeira Sacra — Adega Sernande
In 2015, Orly's dream spread to another emotional, wild, untamable area: Ribeira Sacra, specifically Vilachá de Salvadur. He began making Vertixe, a very personal wine from Galician vineyards. In 2018, he launched his own winery there: Adega Sernande, a space to transfer his personal feeling of this unique natural space. The slate terraces, the Sil River, the Mencía — it is Gredos's opposite in geology but twin in spirit: abandoned, heroic, and demanding total commitment.
Biodynamic Foundations, Zero Chemicals
All of Orly's vineyards — in Gredos and Ribeira Sacra — are worked following traditional agriculture, very marked by biodynamic foundations. He flees from any chemical or systemic product that can poison the land. The commitment is to recovery: to not lose the small hawthorns that were planted decades ago and that depopulation would otherwise lead to decline. It is farming as activism, viticulture as memory.
Winemaking — White Wine Is for Dreaming, Red Wine Is for Enjoyment
Orly's cellar philosophy is summed up in a phrase that has become his motto: "White wine is for dreaming, and red wine is for enjoyment." It is not a trivial distinction. In hardcore red-wine country like the Gredos, the duty to respect the grandeur of Garnacha and reflect terroir precisely may inhibit experimenting freely with reds. White wine, by contrast, is a source for freedom and fancy — a space where the vigneron can play, dream, and push boundaries.
In the cellar, Orly practices pure craftsmanship. "There is no human intervention; I always prefer to talk about accompaniment." Open tubs. Recovery of earthen jars (tinajas) from the last century. Treading with the feet. Always keeping in mind the traditions of the elders and applying them today. Pamper the grape. Minimum extractions. The goal is seductive wines: elegant, expressive, honest, personal, and above all, wines that give the personality of the terroir.
For whites, the approach is equally traditional and radical: whole grapes, de-stemmed, daily trodden, and worked with skins. Skin contact is not an experiment for Orly. It is the traditional way — the way his grandparents would have made white wine before stainless steel and temperature control arrived. The result is textured, amber-hued, and deeply flavoured — wines of character.
What are they looking for? "Seductive wines, elegant, expressive, honest and personal and that give us the personality of the terroir." It is a simple goal, stated simply. But the simplicity is deceptive. It requires total attention, total patience, and a willingness to let the vineyard dictate terms rather than forcing them through chemistry.
The Wines — Dream, Enjoy, and Vertixe
Orly's wines are divided between his own label (Orly Lumbreras Viñador), the RuBor partnership with Rubén Díaz, and the Ribeira Sacra project (Adega Sernande / Vertixe). Production is small, personal, and constantly evolving. The labels are as rock-and-roll as the man himself — each one a transmission of soul and vibration.
Punto G
Single-vineyard Garnacha — Navalmoral de la Sierra, GredosOrly's flagship red — his first winemaking project, and still the purest expression of his Gredos soul. 100% Garnacha from a remote, 70-75 year-old plot at 1,100 metres in Navalmoral de la Sierra, on decomposed granite. Biodynamically farmed. Foot-trodden in open tubs, fermented with indigenous yeasts, aged in old vessels — tinajas, used barrels, concrete. Ripe red and black fruits with baked earth and saline minerality. Concentrated in flavour, punchy, and alive. The wine that made the world notice Orly Lumbreras. Around 15% alcohol in warmer vintages, but always balanced by the altitude's acidity.
Los Besos Que Nunca Te Di
Red — Sierra de Gredos"The Kisses I Never Gave You" — a wine of romantic melancholy and volcanic energy. Garnacha from old vines in the Gredos, made with the same philosophy as Punto G: foot-treading, indigenous yeasts, minimal extraction, and ageing in breathing vessels. More floral and lifted than Punto G, with a perfume of wild herbs, rose petals, and crushed granite. A wine that seems to float despite its concentration — the altitude speaking through the glass.
Malandro
Red — Sierra de GredosThe rascal — a more accessible, immediate expression of Gredos Garnacha, though no less authentic. Made from recovered old vines across Orly's holdings in Navalmoral de la Sierra. Fermented with wild yeasts, foot-trodden, and raised in a mix of concrete and old wood. Juicy, spicy, and dangerously drinkable — red fruit, black pepper, and that unmistakable Gredos granite freshness. The entry point for those who want to understand Orly's world without the intensity of Punto G.
Irreverente
Red — Sierra de GredosThe irreverent one — a wine that breaks rules even within Orly's already unconventional cellar. Garnacha from selected parcels, made with a spirit of experimentation: perhaps different maceration times, perhaps different vessels, perhaps a blend of vintages or techniques that Orly would not apply to his more "serious" cuvées. Always delicious, always unpredictable, always true to the name. A wine for those who believe that irreverence is a form of respect.
Milagritos
Red — Sierra de Gredos"Little Miracles" — a rare and sought-after cuvée from tiny quantities of exceptional old-vine Garnacha. The name speaks to the miracle of these vineyards surviving at all: abandoned, forgotten, on the edge of the forest, and now producing wine of extraordinary concentration and soul. Foot-trodden, tinaja-aged, bottled with nothing added. A wine that coats the mouth with Garnacha fruitiness in the best of ways — medium-bodied, ideal for grilled meats or hearty pastas, but also profound enough to contemplate alone.
Sade Multivarieta
Multi-varietal red — Sierra de GredosA field blend of multiple varieties from Orly's co-planted old vineyards — Garnacha, Albillo Real, and perhaps others growing together in the traditional Gredos manner. The name evokes the Marquis de Sade, but the wine is more about pleasure than pain: a toasty, complex, multi-layered red that shows what happens when you let the vineyard decide the blend rather than the vigneron. Rich flavours, elegant structure, and a finish that keeps giving.
Albillo Real & Chasselas (Whites)
Skin-contact whites — Sierra de GredosOrly's whites are where he dreams. Albillo Real — the great white grape of the Gredos, big-boned and moderate in acidity, infused with the power of mountain earth and air — and Chasselas Doré (also known as Doré), a variety brought from Valencia along the Camino de Levante leading to Santiago. Both are made with skin contact, foot-treading in open tubs, and ageing in earthen jars or old wood. The results are textured, amber-hued, and deeply mineral — wines that taste like granite and sunlight. "White wine is for dreaming."
Vertixe
Mencía — Vilachá de Salvadur, Ribeira SacraOrly's Galician soul. Vertixe — vertigo — is made from Mencía vineyards in Vilachá de Salvadur, Ribeira Sacra, where Orly has been working since 2015. The wine is a very personal expression of this unique natural space: slate terraces, the Sil River, the Atlantic humidity, and the same biodynamic, zero-intervention philosophy that governs his Gredos wines. Foot-trodden, indigenous yeasts, no additives. A Mencía that tastes like Orly's rock-and-roll interpretation of Ribeira Sacra — fresh, mineral, and unmistakably alive. Since 2018, made at his own winery Adega Sernande.
RuBor Viticultores — Groove
Garnacha — Cebreros, Gredos (with Rubén Díaz)The wine that started RuBor. From the high, sandy Garnacha vineyard in Cebreros where Orly and Rubén first tasted together in 2013. Small, concentrated fruit with brilliant acidity and "electric" tannins. Made with the same philosophy across both partners' cellars: organic farming, biodynamic methods, indigenous yeasts, and a commitment to terroir over protocol. Groove is the sound of two friends finding their rhythm in granite. Sensuous, exotic, and mineral — full of personality and pleasure.
RuBor — Protocolo Zero
Albillo & Garnacha — Cebreros, GredosRuBor's first wines made from blends of vineyards and vinifications, driven by "solo sensaciones fugaces" (only fleeting sensations) rather than predetermined protocol. Albillo and Garnacha, treated with the same freedom and intuition that defines Orly's own label. The results are sensuous, exotic, and mineral — wines that change with every vintage, every mood, every spark that flies between the two partners.
Legacy — The Radio Waves That Became Roots
Orly Lumbreras matters because he represents a different kind of origin story in Spanish natural wine. He did not inherit vineyards. He did not study oenology as a teenager. He was a sound engineer who listened — who spent years interviewing vignerons on the radio, absorbing their stories, their struggles, their souls, until he could no longer resist the call. His transition from microphone to vine is not a career change. It is a natural evolution: from transmitting other people's voices to transmitting his own, through wine.
His legacy is agricultural. By recovering ~30 abandoned hawthorns in the Sierra de Gredos — tiny, bush-trained vineyards of 70-80+ year-old Garnacha and Albillo Real that depopulation had sentenced to death — Orly has preserved a piece of Spain's viticultural memory that would otherwise have been lost to forest. He works with the elderly owners, not against them; he honours their labour by continuing it. It is farming as intergenerational solidarity.
His legacy is also creative. The partnership with Rubén Díaz as RuBor Viticultores has produced some of the most exciting and affordable natural wines in the Gredos — wines driven by "fleeting sensations" rather than protocol, by friendship rather than contract. The name RuBor itself is a declaration of collaboration in a world of solo projects. And Orly's own labels — Punto G, Los Besos Que Nunca Te Di, Malandro, Irreverente — are as personal and poetic as anything in Spanish wine.
His legacy is geographic. By splitting his energy between the Sierra de Gredos and Ribeira Sacra, Orly has demonstrated that his philosophy — biodynamic farming, foot-treading, earthen jars, zero chemicals, maximum soul — is not tied to a single terroir. It is a way of listening that works in granite and in slate, in Garnacha and in Mencía. Adega Sernande in Vilachá de Salvadur is the proof: the same man, the same principles, a completely different mountain, and a wine (Vertixe) that tastes like neither Gredos nor conventional Ribeira Sacra. It tastes like Orly.
And his legacy is philosophical. "White wine is for dreaming, and red wine is for enjoyment." It is a statement about creative freedom, about the different kinds of truth that different wines can tell. Orly's whites dream of the past — of earthen jars, of foot-treading, of the way wine was made before technology. His reds enjoy the present — the immediacy of Garnacha fruit, the pleasure of the table, the rock-and-roll energy of a life lived without compromise. Together, they are the transmission of a soul that started in radio waves and ended up rooted in granite and slate.