The founding partnership
CALASSI × AYA Estate
Five wines from AYA Estate became the starting point for five individual CALASSI vessels — a limited collection where terroir, sensory perception, craft and the ritual of serving meet at the table.
AYA Estate · Nature sets the rhythm
Everything begins with the land.
At AYA Estate, wine begins with the landscape of the Struma Valley — with its seasons, its soils, the southern warmth and the cooler air moving down from the mountains.
The estate follows a philosophy of working with nature rather than imposing itself upon it. Wine, hospitality, gastronomy, art and equestrian culture come together as parts of one living place.
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Nature is a balance of yin and yang. Human actions frequently disrupt this harmony, but we have the power to restore it. Helping nature triggers a powerful feedback loop: when we heal the earth, the earth heals us.
AYA Estate · Art and perception
Before words, there is sensation.
At AYA Estate, art and wine are approached as expressions of culture and ways of experiencing the world. Both can reach us before explanation — through atmosphere, material, movement and immediate sensation.
This instinctive encounter is also where CALASSI begins: with what the senses understand before the mind starts to name it.
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Words confuse us these days. If we could take in art with the body and the soul alone — with what stirs in the stomach, the butterflies we feel watching a play or listening to music — it would be better without those words that rush in already fixed in our minds. The first, immediate sensation is far truer than anything that comes once you start to reason.
Founding Collection
The founding collection
Five wines. Five individual translations.
Each CALASSI begins with the sensory character of one AYA wine. The vessel does not illustrate tasting notes literally; it translates the broader profile through form, colour, texture, material and physical presence.
01
AYANO VMR 2025
A wine with a rich floral aroma and a taste of honey, herbs and white peach, carrying the warmth of the southern sun. Its long finish recalls late summer, freshness and freedom.
The CALASSI translation
The matte surface holds the light and remains dry to the touch, carrying the wine’s body without suggesting sweetness. The glossy, flowing upper zone responds to the long finish, floral freshness and white peach, building contrast into the expectation of taste.
02
AYANO ROSÉ 2025
A delicate, floral wine with fine notes of wild strawberry and raspberry. The finish remains fresh and soft, carrying the feeling of summer and ease.
The CALASSI translation
The faceted texture and pearlescent surface follow an uninterrupted oval silhouette, suggesting softness and roundness. The gradual lightening towards the top, cool nacreous sheen and fine rim introduce the freshness and marked acidity of the finish.
03
ZEN CHARDONNAY 2025
An exceptionally elegant wine with a rich aroma of yellow fruit and an intense tropical presence of mango and banana. Fine salinity and gentle minerality shape the aftertaste.
The CALASSI translation
The heavy rounded body under a dense, warm gloss prepares the sense of ripe apple, butter, caramel and ripe tropical fruit. A collar of rough white-grey sea foam around the elongated neck introduces the contrast on which the wine ends: the saline, mineral aftertaste of the sea breeze off Kaliakra.
04
GRENACHE BOUQUET 2025
A bouquet of varieties and wild red fruit, with juicy mulberry and blackberry at its centre. The finish turns unexpectedly fresh and herbal, leaving calm and depth after the fruit.
The CALASSI translation
Saturated glossy red shifts in intensity along the vertical folds, translating the sensation of ripe, juicy fruit and youthful energy. The jade-green rim introduces the cool accent of the wine’s long herbal finish.
05
AYANO MELNIK 2020
An oak-free old vintage that preserves the freshness of its fruit, with ripe cherry and sour cherry woven into earthy and tobacco nuances. Herbal-spicy notes recall the warmth of late autumn in Melnik.
The CALASSI translation
The weight and the broad base keep the volume low and prepare the expectation of an aged wine with structure and tannin. The form answers the shape of a cooled volcano, and the colour of the lower part recalls the sandy soil around Rupite. The asymmetrical open neck responds to the soft tobacco aftertaste and the fruit that unfold behind the tannins.
There is something special about a wine that can take you somewhere else, no matter where you are when you taste it.
That individuality became the starting point for the five CALASSI vessels — five different objects developed from five different sensory identities.
Materia Mensa · Soil to Soul
From the vineyard to the object. From the object to the experience.
The creation of the founding CALASSI × AYA Estate collection became part of a wider exploration of wine, perception, craft and place.
The story behind the collection
Soil to Soul
Materia Mensa: Soil to Soul follows the development of the first CALASSI collection — from the landscape and the wines of AYA Estate to sensory analysis, experimentation in porcelain and the final five vessels.
The project brings these stages together at AYA Estate through film, exhibition and tasting, allowing the wines and the objects created for them to be experienced in the place where the story began.
01
Wine
02
Perception
03
Object
04
Experience
Soil becomes vine. Vine becomes wine. Wine becomes perception. Perception becomes form.