Zýmē

Stubbornness. Resilience. Curiosity. Like every good story, Celestino Gaspari’s has all these elements. Plus a lot of determination to dare, to grow and to experiment.

This fire has been burning inside him since his childhood spent in his family’s vineyards. Over the years, it’s been fuelled by a series of fortunate encounters with people who recognised and encouraged the ferment of the soul that still distinguishes him today.  Because Celestino is a seeker. An explained. A thinker. But above all, a doer.

Many of the great Valpolicella wines are his work. His professional skills were honed by twenty years working as winemaker for some of the most renowned wineries in Valpolicella.

As his experience grew, so did the desire to create something unique, to give voice and substance to a wine that would bear testimony to the fertility and the heritage of this valley, constituted by numerous native grape varieties, the most authentic grape-drying methods and human skill in using intuition to select the best grapes and noticing every little detail about them.

In 1999, Celestino Gaspari produced his first wine in a garage, and that was the start of one of the most exciting winemaking careers in the Veneto. In 2003, he founded his own winery, which he named Zýme – meaning “yeast”, a reference to one of the most important elements of wine production. Incidentally, Gaspari was trained by the Amarone legend Quintarelli. With his original and extremely characterful wines, he quickly caused a sensation and Zýme has long been one of the best and most exciting wineries in the Veneto.

And so it was that, in 1999, the wine Harlequin was born – and with it, the Zýmē adventure.