Being part Spanish, Cynar is something I remembered from the 70s and 80s, the choice for older men in boinas who weren’t into aniseed. Thankfully it stayed in Spanish bars and as an adult I became appreciative of the way it, ahem, elevates certain scents and flavours once you take a sip or two. There’s good reason why it is considered an aphrodisiac.

I hadn’t had it with sparkling wine until comparatively recently, but, my goodness it works. The first Spritz I ever had in Venice was made with Aperol, but my tastes matured and I started to find it too sweet, Select is nice but rather “floral”, Cynar hits it for me, doubly so if I am with someone, it delivers a subtle enhancement but one I very much appreciate.

And, no, to put Cynar into the same sentence as Limoncello… Just no.

ETA - just did a bit of a deep dive using Italian sites and resources. I’m more confused than before about why a notable “Amaro” would be compared to a non bitters drink such as Limoncello. Oh well, de gustibus non est disputandum.

What really tickled my interest was discovering that Cynar was “beta tested” in two bars before it was commercially launched in the early 1950s. One of those bars was in Padua, the other in Venice with the originators inventing it in Padua in the 1940s. It truly has a Veneto provenance.

This blog article from 2012 lists the Cynar Spritz as being a variant found in Padua.
https://cantinalacosta.wordpress.com/tag/cynar/