A municipality of the Ribeira Sacra in Lugo, above the canyons of the Sil and the Cabe. Its name comes from the Latin personal name Superus (“villa Superii”); it preserves remains of Iron Age hill forts, and in 785 Bishop Odoario of Lugo founded the villa of Amandi.
documented 876 (donation of vines in Barantes and Bolmente); Roman legend (Amandi wine for Augustus), popularised by Cunqueiro in the 20th centuryVines in exchange for masses: Bolmente and the red wine of Amandi
In the year 876 several of the faithful gave the monastery of Santa Cristina, perched above the Sil canyon, some vineyards in the lands of Lemos, at Barantes and Bolmente, now parishes of Sober, in exchange for masses for the repose of their souls. It is one of the earliest mentions of wine in Galicia. A century later, in 976, another donation repeated the arrangement. From the 13th century the monasteries of the Ribeira Sacra bought and managed wine from Amandi, the hillside of Sober that became their favourite larder. On that prestige the legend grew: Álvaro Cunqueiro wrote that the reds of Amandi were pleasing to the Emperor Augustus, and popular tradition adds that they were sent to Rome. No document proves it, but the stone terraces running down to the Sil are still there.
Alive today: Sober is the heart of the Amandi subzone of the DO Ribeira Sacra. Every Palm Sunday weekend it holds the Feira do Viño de Amandi, declared of tourist interest and held since the early 1980s (42nd edition in 2022). In Doade and Bolmente work bodegas such as Adega Algueira and Regina Viarum, practising heroic viticulture on terraces above the Sil.