Vetivresse: Nosing Around in Scent, Wine & Style

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My Favorite Médoc

2010-01-20T10:29:00.001-08:00

I’ve got Bordeaux on the brain and, lo and behold, I’m not the only one. A few things are afoot: the 2009 futures tasting approaches fast and furious (much anticipation) and Eric Asimov’s recent Wines of the Times tasting of the lower-priced crus bourgeoises was well-timed and broad in its reach. Unlike most Burgundy, Bordeaux – the masculine wine of France, adored by Brit and German alike since the eighteenth century – historically has represented a better value and a better bet on cellaring. And this has held true particularly in less-fêted vintages. In fact, some of the very first full cases I ever purchased were from the 1998 and 2001 vintages, Chateau Cantemerle and Chateau Pontet-Canet. At the time, right under the nose of my oblivious landlord, I’d strung off a part of our building’s stone cellar and constructed makeshift wine racks. The bottles were indeed values back then, and I cherished going downstairs with my cup of coffee on Sunday mornings and inspecting my holdings. (Heck, even at the cheap end of the spectrum, a Bordeaux label says, albeit groggily, “Laisse-moi, I need my beauty sleep.”)

Now more than ever, I seek out values wherever and whenever I can. The designer names of the First-Growths and the Napa cult cabernets mean less and less. (Don’t get me wrong: Bring me a bottle of 1987 Spring Mountain Cabernet, and we will talk.) Since the 2005 vintage, I have to agree with Eric Asimov that Bordeaux prices have skyrocketed to such an extent that exploring the better values and, quite frankly, interesting wines from, say, southern Italy and the Beaujolais, seems a wiser move. There is little need anymore to scrounge around the lesser crus on the Gironde estuary. All that said (!!) I confess an old-fashioned affinity for Médoc, especially 2005 Chateau Greysac ($13). I love its dark aromas of pencil lead, cherries, blackcurrant and plums, underpinned by austere, but never unappealing, notes of cedar, herbs, tobacco and bell pepper. Here is a wine where the Cabernet Franc does what it was always supposed to do: to etch complexity and nuance onto the folds of velvet fruit that represent a headline vintage like ’05.

While this wine would lend itself well to meaty dishes, you already know my penchant for lighter fare. I’d just as easily retire with it to a comfortable chair and nurse it with a good novel, film or diverting after-dinner conversation. If I had to label it, I’d call it my “library” wine.

No wonder the British also loved Port.

Mr. Pinot

2010-01-11T10:30:00.000-08:00

I have a confession to make. Big, bold mouth-staining wines don’t do it for me. So rarely do I eat the food that complements them well: the aged cuts of beef, the savory fatty pork dishes and all that pan-seared caramelized goodness. But give me a lithe and lean pinot noir or a spicy elegant cabernet franc and I’m in heaven. On Friday night, I took a friend for dinner at Momofuku. I hadn’t been there in at least a year, and the food was just as good—or better—than I remember it. And, given their dirt cheap corkage fee, I had a good bottle in tow: a 2001 Fougeray de Beauclair Bonnes-Mares Grand Cru ($105). I figured that a classic year like 2001 would provide an object lesson in what well-made pinot noir can be. Much to my dismay, though, Momofuku does not have stemware. I’ve certainly heard arguments to the contrary, but a good glass does help Burgundy and older Bordeaux. Tumblers are too narrow and deep to allow the wine the proper space to recline, stretch itself out, breathe and warm up. With the door at Noodle Bar opening every thirty seconds, the room was quite cool and our Bonnes-Mares remained chilled throughout the meal. But it showed very nicely next to the steamed pork buns and roasted Hudson Valley foie gras. Deep garnet-purple and medium-bodied and perfectly pleasant to quaff, it all but lacked that iron-fist-in-velvet-glove appeal that should characterize grand cru Burgundy. Noodle Bar is hardly the sort of room where you can relax with your food. It’s more about people-watching and chatting with your tablemates, interspersed with the requisite swoons of “OMG, most delicious thing ever!” Afterward we retired to the hipster-swank Hotel Delmano in Williamsburg for a flight of artisanal rums, while a trio next to us embarked on a most dangerous game of tequila, Tecate and spicy tomato juice.

Last night, a wine colleague and I opened a bottle of Michel Gaunoux’s 1999 Beaune ($48). Two steps down the scale from Grand Cru status, this village-level wine was absolutely stunning. Granted, ’99 was a better vintage than ’01, but this wine showed such poise and restraint. It didn’t advertise its superior vintage with fruit-driven oeno-shenanigans. Britons like to refer to “breed” in wine, and I think that term is apropos. Pinot snobs often thumb their noses at Beaune as an appellation that is better known for its whites, but I’ll take its reds any day. The Gaunoux was pure and mineral-driven with silken tannins surrounding a ruby core of crushed red berries, leather, game and a hint of Asian spice (the ground white pepper called prik thai that you’ll find in a Thai specialty store). A little online research revealed that, while this is a village-level wine, it contains grapes from two Premier Cru parcels. I will definitely be snapping up a few more bottles of this at PJ’s for the cellar.

Vetivresse presents The Holiday Wine and Scent Seminar

2009-10-22T19:10:00.000-07:00

Love the thrill of a robust, earthy Burgundy?
Have dreams about vintage Champagne?
Own a small fortune in fragrance?
Think you have an acute sense of smell?
(Considering insuring your nose?)
Or just starting out?

Christopher Voigt, writer and Editor of Vetivresse.com, a WSET^®-certified sommelier will lead one 2-hour seminar exploring the shared seduction of wine and perfume on December 15. The seminar will take place in Manhattan and will be limited to 15 participants.

We will explore 6 vintage wines from my personal cellar and 6 fragrances, with light hors d’oeuvres and cheese. From the hazelnut splendors of Meursault “Perrières” to the delicate spice of Chinon “Picasses” and the gunflint and fruit of a 1989 Mosel Auslese ... all the way to the pinnacle of honeyed French dessert wines – it is sure to be an evening ripe with revelations for the beginner and seasoned wine lover alike.

Two additional seminars will be offered in January. A perfect holiday gift for that busy spouse, friend or loved one who wants to learn more about the world of wine and scent.

The cost of the seminar is $150. Reservations can be made at vetivresse@gmail.com. Please reply by December 5.

Cherry Ripe: Sicilian Vespers & The Perfect Supper Wine

2009-10-20T19:37:00.000-07:00

Over the weekend a friend and I had a late post-concert supper at the Time Warner location of Landmarc, the pleasantly bustling eatery overlooking Columbus Circle. Neither of us was particularly in the mood for a huge meal, making this the perfect spot to sample some excellent wine and some small portions. One of the things I love about Landmark is that practically every plate is offered as a half-portion. We ordered the pasta of the day––a spaghetti Bolognese––and some boudin noir with pommes frites. As for wine, the 2005 Gaunoux Bourgogne ($46) would compliment both dishes and provide enjoyment throughout the entire meal; except they had just opened their last bottle about a half-hour before we sat down. So I consulted the list again and almost immediately zeroed in on a 2006 Cerasuolo di Vittoria Classico from Azienda Agricola Cos ($48).

“Cerasuolo” means “cherry-red” in Sicilian, and indeed it was, with pristine clarity and hue. Even before bringing the glass to my nose, I could assess the weight and rusticity––all those qualities that the rest of the evening would allow it to bring out. The wine had a gorgeous cherry nose and palate, a nice dose of spices and, most importantly, the terroir that I was looking for in my first bottle selection. Still quite youthful and full of luscious berry fruit, its lighter weight appealed and didn’t overpower the casual, simply prepared food.

Made from a blend of Nero d’Avola and Frapato grapes (60/40) grown in sandy, tufa-rich soil and fermented in stainless steel, Cerasuolo usually doesn’t see new wood. That said, if deep, rich, high-alcohol oaky reds are your thing, this won’t do the trick. But for me it’s got just the right dose of old world charm. While some vintages can be cellared for a decade or more, the vast majority of bottles are intended for enjoyment in the short term.

If you are a Burgundy-lover but want something for everyday quaffing at a recession-proof price, Cerasuolo is where it’s at. As the Sicilians say, Quannu amuri tuppulìa, 'un lu lassari 'nmenzu la via. (Roughly translated as,“When love knocks, be sure to answer.”)

After the Fire: Fahrenheit Absolute

2009-09-23T18:07:00.000-07:00

I love all three iterations of Dior’s Fahrenheit. It is one of those pitch-perfect mainstream fragrances (like Grey Flannel) that never bores this nose. Violet leaf here achieves its most aromatic accord with a host of floral notes that run the gamut from gravelly hawthorn to a green almost-sugary honeysuckle. In its latest flanker, Fahrenheit Absolute, the florals are subdued while the base is amped up. As Octavian Coifan notes on 1000Fragrances, “Not the top notes and the freshness of Fahrenheit were accentuated, but the deepest dark notes.” If the original Fahrenheit were all the petrol-laden flint and florals of a fine Mosel Riesling, the Absolute version is that idea translated to the inside of a toasted barrel and left there for a long, long time.

Fahrenheit Absolute has the sweetness of spirits--sweetness that gets you in the back of your throat right after the burn subsides. Think Armagnac-Ténarèze, a newish Hine Cognac, a sherry-cask single-malt Scotch whisky or a very unabashed Reposado.

My only gripe: I wish the leather note lasted longer. An hour-and-a-half is all it takes before the incense and guaiac are more apparent. Ah, give me the pencil shavings-and-leather of Montale Aoud Leather. All that said, this is one kitchen that’s too hot for the likes of me. A great winter ’09/10 men’s offering. I hope it comes to the States soon.

Image credit: Francois Truffaut, Fahrenheit 451, 35mm film still.

Into the Woods: Men’s Fragrance Fall ’09

2009-09-08T17:25:00.000-07:00

Looking back over the F/W 2009 menswear collections on Men.Style.com occasioned some thoughts on which fragrances guys should consider exploring in the months to come. It is, after all, so true that most men just wear what they’ve been wearing – but how to reconcile that with the new direction that their styling of themselves is taking them? Up until now, I saw three main camps: the thrifts (guys who basically won’t consider spending over $45 on fragrance or whose idea of fragrance is their deodorant stick); the jocks (for whom everything in cool blue glass was acceptable, as long as it didn’t clash with the free gel at the gym); and, finally, the traditionalists (Dad wore it, so I wear it). I’m leaving out the hipsters and the stylist types, as their impact on the overall market has been negligible. Each of these camps was a microcosm, insular and often impenetrable. That has all changed.

Guys are taking stock of their lives and making an honest assessment of who they are and who they aren’t – they’re choosing to wear things in a new way, one that blends innovation with the things they’ve always felt comfortable in. It’s ultimately about individuality. It’s about taking that old, time-softened flannel shirt and mashing it up with a chunky cardigan and a black silk tie, classic Levi’s and suede moccasins. It’s about grabbing a leather duffel or Filson instead of a clunky black laptop bag. It seems very much like a dressed-up rusticity. It reminds me of what colognes like Polo used to represent.

Woods, resins and green-leathers are the rising stars of men’s fragrance notes in Fall 2009 – woods that remind us of the casks used for aging deep, full-bodied red wines and spirits like bourbon and rye. The oud craze will impact this a little, with perfumers looking back at ahead-of-their-time creations, like Yves Saint Laurent’s M7 (from the louche Tom Ford years) and Zirh Ikon. The difference will be that the really successful new scents will ally rusticity with cleanliness. (Aside here: I abhor the fragrance connoisseurs who see gameyness as the sign of profundity. Skatol does not a great fragrance make.) Tom Ford’s Private Blend scents such as Oud Wood, Bois Rouge, Tuscan Leather and Arabian Wood, get this down pat. The truly successful scents will also last on the skin and, while their linear nature may not win them the critics, their drydowns will beguile.

What will I be wearing this fall? First off, Creed’s Epicea (whose pine and spice makes me feel like I’ve returned to the original world of Polo, without the teenage prep school angst), Nasomatto’s Black Afgano (which will be splashed on scarves and bulky woolens), Montale’s Aoud Leather (pared-down perfection, so different than everything else in that behemoth collection) and Amouage Epic for Men (I’ve died and either woken up on the set of Lawrence of Arabia or the trapeze in Lola Montès).

What’s definitely out? Flowers for men (that’s so 2007). Big ostentatious incenses (God is dead). One-note aquatics (if you want water, book some tickets to the Bahamas).

So fill your flasks, guys, grab your copy of Walden, Schott’s Miscellany and a Moleskin or two and start marching to your own beat. I assure you, you won’t be alone.

Image credit: Anthony Goicolea, Treedwellers (2004). Courtesy of Torch Gallery, Artworld Online.

Best Magnolia Ever: Reflection Woman

2009-08-27T18:47:00.000-07:00

For some odd reason, imminent showers (of the meteorological sort) send me reaching for the more classically feminine scents. Of late, I’ve been taken with Maurice Roucel’s Reflection Woman for Amouage, which contains arguably one of the most perfectly executed magnolia notes in all of fine perfumery. I guess it apropos before my reviews of the new heavy-hitters, Epic Man and Epic Woman, to contemplate a fragrance drawn with a lighter hand.

Reflection Woman, true to its name, has a wateriness that endears it to me almost immediately. Like the scent of my mother’s skin after her morning swim in the pond. Except that the pond was northeastern, and I never once got to smell the magnolia – a real Southern thing – until I was bigger.

After all, magnolia is one of the hardest scents to recreate in the laboratory. It is at once delicate and sensual, fragile and carnal. In some instances, it can be cloying and almost cheap. But, sharing molecules with jasmine and muguet, its sweetness marries the skin in a demure, human (never showy) fashion. In Reflection Woman, the jasmine is linked to ylang ylang, lending the scent tenacity and a better-than-decent sillage. Roucel’s trademark note, michelia alba (a tropical magnolia) is shown off better here than in any other fragrance carrying his signature.

Reflection Woman is the epitome of a wearable, polite fragrance – but never pedestrian. It has the pedigree of a Hepburn crossed with a Vanderbilt. It doesn’t need to button itself up when the clouds gather. It is alive. It sings in the rain.

Behold the Oud: Bond No. 9 Harrods Special Edition

2009-08-16T19:53:00.000-07:00

I recently had the opportunity to experience the fruit of Bond No. 9’s collaboration with the venerable Harrods Knightsbridge department store — what is being called Harrods Special Edition. For those of you who haven’t been following these developments, it’s one of three scents that Harrods commissioned and, notably, it’s the oud among them. The catch is that it’s a limited-edition scent and its bottle is crystallized with over a thousand Swarovski crystals that I thought we’d already had quite enough of. It’s also pricey. But it’s oud, silly.

Joy Land, the intrepid doyenne of Sherry-Lehmann Wine and Spirits, once confided to me that, here in New York, the moneyed families often would buy up all the imperfect labels (the ripped and wine-splashed, etc) — after all, they were just going to drink the stuff, not genuflect in front of it. And, of late, I wish that the same could be done for perfume. Especially, um, Special Edition. A few missing crystals aren’t going to shake what is now bordering on outright adoration.

That said, of late my love affair with oud has taken a new turn. Or, let me rephrase: My love affair with oud’s influence on a select set of Western perfumers — including Christopher Chong’s latest incarnation of Amouage — has just kicked into warp. Seriously, mes amis, last spring I went out on a limb praising the various mukhullats and attars that utilized this strange and precious substance, and lo and behold, here in August 2009, everything’s coming up “oud.” I’m surprised Axe hasn’t come out with an Abu Dhabi-exclusive yet.

Apparently, having tested Special Edition and its high-end stablemate By Kilian Pure Oud, I’m struck by the similarity in the base material. It’s been rumored that both employ a new natural ingredient developed by Givaudan called Oud Orpur — and I’d wager that Tom Ford’s Private Blend Oud Wood employs the same, albeit at a greater dilution. It is sheer perfection in a material, and I envy the perfumer who gets the creative brief to use it.

Harrods Special Edition opens with cumin and black pepper before exploding on the skin in typical oud fashion and, again, like the By Kilian Pure Oud, tempering it with vetiver. Being much smoother and refined, it’s worlds — galaxies, universes — apart from the rapidly multiplying and (still-affordable-on-a-living-wage) ouds from Montale in Paris. An hour after I sprayed it in the crook of my right elbow, people were asking me what I was wearing and telling me how amazing I smelled. It was one of those “yesss” moments for a perfume connoisseur — as these were normal on-the-go New Yorkers who love to smell good but who don’t particularly fetishisize scent the way that I do.

So... I am seriously in love with this juice, just sans those Swarovskis. This side of the Emirates, lavish most certainly does not have to be garish.

Musty-Have: Le Labo Oud 27

2009-07-20T18:23:00.000-07:00

“He became aware that he was uncomfortable; but then like so many times before, his uncomfortableness started to feel like pleasure. Then revulsion. Then guilt. Then pity. Then love.” – Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye

I detest pretense in perfume. It clouds the judgment. By Kilian, for instance, makes beautiful juice but the creative and marketing pain me. Le Labo has a handful of things I admire and wear, but the tone of the brand is so bloody holier-than-thou. The former is like an interior decoration job that is filled with things that serve no purpose other than ornament; the latter reminds me, in my less ingenuous moments, of a trendy bar washroom that’s been made to look like it dates from 1950; when, in truth, it dates from last Tuesday.

Revulsion is a great marketing tool. Aside from sensation and intrigue, we really do secretly become fascinated with the things that turn us off. With bad taste, ugliness and vice. After all, a pinch of one of these or other is what turns run-of-the-mill beauty into something addictive.

When I first smelled Oud 27, perfumer Dawn Spencer Hurwitz and I looked at each other and mouthed “laundry bag.” (In all fairness, it was a warm May day; I’d smelled at least 40 different fragrances in the four hours preceding.) But something happened over the next ten days -- call it a strong Scent Memory -- that sent me back to Elizabeth Street holding my wallet in hand. It was like tasting black licorice as a child for the very first time, or those nasty black pellets sold in gas stations along the Autostrada that blend anise with Pirelli tire rubber. Unwittingly, a taste had been acquired. I was in love with an oud I could afford.

Oud 27 is all about that place between the sweet-savoury and the medicinal. In that sense, it occupies ground held by things like saffron and myrrh. But, allied to this dichotomy, is a hefty dose of castoreum and synthetic civet as well as a sappy woody note (birch oil). The oud used is most likely Oud Synthetic 10760 E by Firmenich. The drydown is Atlas cedar and musk. As with many natural ouds the sweetness can stray into the putrefactory, but the nose here is diverted from that path by a beautiful succession of ancillary notes: including honey, rose, labdanum, and gaiac wood.

While many will want to call this unisex, I safely can aver that this belongs on the male of the species, preferably dried on a favorite t-shirt. There is nothing pretentious about it. But, then again, on a humid summer day it’s not exactly courtly love that we’re after.

Never Change: Chanel Cristalle

2009-07-09T19:14:00.000-07:00

In the world of perfume there are two poles – nostalgia on the one hand, and on the other a kind of reckless novelty. Nostalgia says “It Was and Ever Shall Be.” Reckless Novelty pipes “We’ll Add New Accord and They Will Grow Addicted.” Being a firm believer that you can have too much of a good thing, I try to not to side with either. A conversation that at forty-five minutes long was going to be put into your short book of Greatest Conversations became insufferable at one-hour thirty minutes. It is the same way with great perfumes. Nahéma parfum on a special evening out at the opera was divine; Nahéma Eau de Toilette sprayed on before the school pageant (and reapplied at intermission) is diabolical. On the other end of the spectrum, there is the sometimes-goodhearted attempt to improve on something deemed “old-ladyish,” viz. Mitsouko Fleur de Lotus, Shalimar Eau Légère and other latter-day flankers of Great Perfumes of Days Long Gone. I see nothing morally reprehensible about wanting to contemporize. Well .... with one exception.

Chanel Cristalle Eau de Toilette is, for me, one of the top 8 fragrances still in production. It is hard as heck to find – not to toot my horn, but Bloomingdale’s still carries it – and recently was flanked by something insipid and green called Eau Verte. It’s been around since 1974, one of the handful of masterpieces of Henri Robert. (No 19 and Pour Monsieur are its stable mates.) It straddles that shaded path between chypre and green floral, and is the quintessential warm-weather scent. Hyacinth, jasmine and melon are fronted by crisp, light citrus and green galbanum. It is youthful and full of irrepressible exuberance without (thanks to oakmoss) ever coming across as cheap or giggly. I grow worried that I don’t see testers out for it anymore – one has to ask for it, and even then the sales associates push the newer Eau de Parfum version (yes, version, not concentration - totally different fragrances). Why? Is Chanel embarassed by some of the scents in its stable? Will No. 19 fall victim to this sort of treatment soon?

Each day, my desk fills with three or four new scents for which there is nothing really new to say (or smell) except a shuffling of a few popular aroma chemicals. The vast majority strike me as old before they’re even released onto the market; a few stand out. This isn’t snobbery, it’s just a humbling reminder that precious few things are new under the sun (ever). In a sea of the static, the dynamic must swim against the tide. Cristalle did that. Thirty-five years ago, to be exact.

May it never tire.

Not-So-Square-Roots: Irises for Men

2009-06-23T19:11:00.000-07:00

Summer is the playground of mediocre scents. Right now, I’m loving a tube of Versace L’Eau Fraîche shower gel for after the gym. My boyfriend is using Hugo Man. We both have tons of niche to choose from on a daily basis, but much of niche doesn’t have that fresh zip that summer in Manhattan requires (especially, if you’re wearing a suit and tie). But before we go completely off the deep end and start spritzing ourselves with something like I Am King, I’d like to recommend three clean and refreshing iris fragrances that can make it into any man’s routine.

First off, getting the equivalent of four stars in my book, is Heeley Iris de Nuit. Iris by its very nature gives the illusion of coolness. Orris -- the official name of the rhizome that iris flowers grow out of -- comes from under the ground, out of the sun. James Heeley’s interpretation is done with a cedar and angelica root accord that, for some unknown reason, reminds me of licorice. Me suspects some vetiver, but I may be wrong. Despite its name, its the perfect daytime scent: limpid enough to refresh but tenacious enough to not have you spraying yourself as the clock strikes each hour. This is how Prada should have done their iris, but they put their pennies into the packaging instead.

Tied for second are two other irises for the boys: Divine L’Homme de Coeur and The Different Company’s Bois d’Iris. The former, created by Yann Vasnier, puts its iris in a cocktail shaker with some juniper and cypress tinctures for a markedly sexy man effect; the latter, brainchild of Jean-Claude Ellena employs bergamot and narcissus, making it the most perfumey of the three.

If I were to choose the runner-up, it would be Acqua di Parma’s Iris Nobile Eau de Parfum. Sweet, fruity and floral -- and perfectly wearable -- though it leaves me asking: when did you lose touch with your roots, man?

Babylonics: Chaldée by Jean Patou

2009-06-09T18:46:00.000-07:00

Here’s some food for thought: In 1930, the House of Jean Patou released “Joy” – right smack at the beginning of the Great Depression. “Joy” was an expensive perfume before the age of perfumes that needed to announce their expense. People were broke and dejected, and there was Patou himself – suffering due to the loss of precious American business – directing perfumer Henri Alméras to create an extravagant blend of 28 dozen roses and over 10,000 jasmine flowers. To this day, it stands as one of the great marketing coups of the last century.

Alméras himself had weathered hardship in 1925, the year his illustrious employer Paul Poiret went bankrupt (along with his beloved Parfums de Rosine label). Patou represented a new start for him. One of his memorable early creations was a complete succès de folie. Patou was banking on the newfangled vogue for sunbathing and tennis, and in 1927 had Alméras create a suntan oil called Huile de Chaldée for the jaunty young flappers who were laying themselves out on yachts and plages across the Mediterranean. The scent of the oil caught on, and later that same year the parfum version was released.

Chaldée was inspired by the ancient Babylonian empire which, I guess, stood out in Patou’s mind as a mythic dream of sun-drenched ruins and cerulean seas. Like Shalimar, which preceded it by two years, Chaldée leveraged the popular opopanax-amber accord in its base. Its formula was deceptively short, with notes of orange flower, hyacinth, jasmine, narcissus, lilac, the aforementioned accord and a warm nuzzle of what can only be (now-illegal) nitromusks.
Unlike other scents that share its birth year – Lanvin Arpège, Caron Bellodgia, Guerlain Djedi and Weil Chinchilla Royal – Chaldée lacks the ubiquitous geranium and rose in its base.

I love it for its jasmine and its long-lived amber core. It is casual for Patou, worlds apart from the opulence of “Joy” – but, then, who needs joy when the party is still in full swing, before the walls of Babylon have tumbled?

Djedi today?

2009-05-25T19:10:00.000-07:00

First there was Cuir de Russie (Chanel, 1924), then Shalimar (Guerlain, 1925) and finally Djedi, Jacques Guerlain’s creation of 1926, launched in 1928 to commemorate the house’s centenary. A beautiful dry damask rose couched in civet and vetiver. It has the warm, soapy resinous quality of Shalimar and the smoky leather of Cuir de Russie minus the Grasse jasmine and ylang ylang. For me, it is the epitome of Art Deco like a John Hughes set from Night and Day or Rhapsody in Blue, though the woman who wore it probably wouldn’t have been caught dead in such crass glitz.

Would Djedi sell today? Considering the surprisingly endless appeal of Shalimar, I don’t see why not. Simply market it as Shalimar d’Automne d’Hokaïdo and watch it fly off the shelves.

Jasmine Too Girly for a Guy?

2009-05-19T19:04:00.000-07:00

This morning I did something out of the ordinary: I pulled a volume of Cavafy from the bookshelf and read his 1915 poem “Orophernes,” while I sipped my cup of Assam (Golden Tips, for those theaphiles among you). I guess a poem about “delicious Ionian nights” was a good side to my northern Indian indulgence. What struck me most about the poem were the lines describing the royal Cappadocian ephebe “among the strangers” of Ionia:

In his heart was he ever the Asiatic,
but in his conduct and discourse a Greek:
arrayed in precious stones, in Hellenic garb,
scented all over with jasmine perfume.
Among the beautiful young Ionians
he was the most beautiful (ὡραῖος), the most ideal.

The Koine Greek adjective ὡραῖος comes from the word ὥρα which means “hour.” Beauty comes from ripeness, literally “of the hour” or -moment. Interesting, then, that the young Orophernes scents his body with jasmine, certainly the most indolic of smells (read “animalic”) – ripeness, indeed!

Jasmine eroticizes the youth, drawing attention to his fleeting hour of beauty “among the strangers.” I love how scent here makes quick work of the gender divide. It makes me wonder how, when a man or woman wears a scent at that appointed hour, regardless of all external limitations, it transforms him or her into an object of instant desire. This is the magic of perfume, the thing which has always made us view it as an elixir of love.

Good jasmines for men nowadays are hard to find. Caron’s 3-ème Homme comes to mind, along with Annick Goutal’s Le Jasmin (smoky and woody). Fougère accords traditionally used jasmine notes, but many shed them on account of added expense. I wonder what Orophernes would wear today, faced with a night out at the clubs. Any suggestions?

So.... I am raffling a sample of The Perfume House Private Reserve Yasminale, which IMHO is - along with vintage Joy - one of the most beautiful jasmine-lily of the valley perfumes available. The winner will be drawn from the pool of comments on this entry on Saturday, May 23.

Colonial Coffeehouse: Eau des Îles

2009-05-12T19:30:00.000-07:00

For some time, coffee fragrances have enjoyed a certain vogue among the perfume cognoscenti. Maurice Roucel’s Riverside Drive, Jacques Huclier’s flanker for Thierry Mugler, A*Men Pure Coffee, Jo Malone Black Vetyver Cafe and the coffee granddaddy, L’Artisan Parfumeur’s L’Eau du Navigateur – each has showcased this ultimate comfort note, which, along with chocolate and tobacco, forms a triad of vanillin-packed scents. To smell a cigar humidor, a dark chocolate wrapper or, as is the case here in New York City, to walk past a branch of Porto Rico Importing Co., is to fall under the smell of the bean (coffee, tonka, cocoa or otherwise).

As some of you may know, I recently completed a move to a new space, and in the process many samples and bottles were jostled about ... which is to say that quite a few things, which previously languished in the dark, got their proverbial moment in the sun. Maître Parfumeur et Gantier’s L’Eau des Îles was among them, and now I am kicking myself for not having recognized (or better appreciated) its strong features years ago. Jean Leporte, who also was responsible for L’Eau du Navigateur, created it in the pre-gourmand days of the mid-Eighties. Taking a spicy, musky coffee note and allying it to the weedy note of galbanum, Laporte created something beautiful in its hardness – for lack of a better analogy, a sort of tropical flanker to Germaine Cellier’s galbanum-bombshell, Bandit (as recreated, of course, by the Guichard duo at Givaudan).

It is an unsung wonder, and if you like Bandit and, albeit for a very different reason, Patou’s Colony, this cup’s for you.

Getting Blade: Creed Acier Aluminium

2009-04-14T18:41:00.000-07:00

A new love has come my way. Well, not exactly new ... but let’s just say, my eyes have been opened to his oh-so-clear-and-present charms. But his name is the daffiest thing this side of Greenwich Avenue. That said, Creed’s Acier Aluminium is no stranger to the high-end men’s fragrance scene. Released back, prenatus Vetrivressum, in 1973, he’s recently begun something of a resurgence in popularity among the sartorial set.

Lovers of Guerlain Habit Rouge will appreciate Acier Aluminium’s exploration of the cool-warm divide, its near-perfect navigation of a sort of Northwest passage of bracing citrus tropical fruit and plush––rather than furry––civet. If the latest Yves Saint Laurent men’s launch were a nighttime prowl, this is love in the afternoon. (But not al fresco. More like, on a king-size bed in a Richard Meier condo.)

And, what I love so much about Acier Aluminium (try saying that three-times-fast) is that it moves at its own very leisurely pace through a full-dress olfactory pyramid. The drydown alone, with its spices, ambergris and drop-dead-gorgeous vanilla absolute, is worth the price of admission.

Orientals are in sore need of reevaluation by men’s fragrance wearers, and like Le Labo Patchouli 24, Shalimar extrait, Habit Rouge and Opium pour Homme and the new La Nuit de l’Homme, Acier Aluminium should constitute a must-try for Summer 2009 and beyond.

Gilding the Lily: Amouage Ubar

2009-03-26T19:49:00.000-07:00

Jasmine perfumes of the Islamic school can be notoriously ill-bred. Throughout the Middle East deft but cloying synthetics have inundated the non-alcohol-based perfume oil tradition. Each day, erstwhile scent merchants pawn off synthetics on a well-heeled unsuspecting clientele. And no one is the poorer for it. We’ve all been taught that synthetics are good, and indeed they are. But Hedione discussions aside, for me jasmine is the one big glaring exception. Some Middle Eastern jasmine perfumes are so roughly constructed that they only express one facet of this extraordinary blossom: a sweetness so sweet and unpleasant that it makes my teeth ache. In Mumbai, I ask myself, is there a toilet bowl cleaner that smells like this? And there very well may be.

All of which brings me to the reorchestration of Amouage Ubar, a fragrance for which words battle in my head for precedence: balance, authenticity, mystery, splendor, and spirit. And yet I want to dismiss them all, because, being so overdetermined, they push the concept above the experience. Simply, Ubar is a superlatively pretty perfume. And very well-done. It was blessed with another one of those pre-recession, spare-no-expense-like creative briefs that many perfumers would die to be able to execute, if only for the sheer rise that must come with ordering a kilo of top-grade jasmine absolute. Ubar is not revolutionary, unless in 2009 one still were to view the cuisine of, say, a Marc-Antoine Carème as pushing the envelope. I, for one, cannot accommodate very often, if in fact at all, an entire brace (a flock! people, a flock!) of roasted duck à la Brétonne, let alone a purée of hummingbirds’ tongues.

But, let’s face it, we only have so much patience for revolutionary fervor in our times. Look at all those Comme de Garçons scents of the nineties that people who “didn’t wear perfume” wore. Many were hideous. (If we’d stopped at the fashions, we’d have been great. But, lightbulb dust burning smells and carrion ... spare us, O Lord.) Luxury that masquerades as nothing but itself is perfectly OK by me. And a well-constructed perfume is hardly luxury; it should be a requirement of the industry. Strike one, strike two, you’re out. Better to have sold a few million bottles of Febreze or that Indian jasmine Toilet Duck I mentioned than to author some abominable pink bugspray.

Ubar continues that marvelous rounded approach to a dominant floral note that we found with Lyric Woman and Lyric Man. Creative director Christopher Chong and his perfumers know what they’re doing with the lily-of-the-valley note and those lovely basso registers of Bulgarian rose, sandalwood and civet. But here the aria is from a Massenet opera like Esclarmonde, instead of Verdi. And it’s not Callas at La Scala I’m hearing, but Sutherland at the Dallas Opera.

Chypres by the (Half-) Dozen

2009-03-04T20:43:00.000-08:00

Some perfumes are haiku (and often not very good ones); some are chapters (longish in style––they make you crazily anxious for plot twist that, alas, seldom comes); and a choice few are what I’d call prose poems. These late winter days, this last is the category piques that my interest the most––and, within it, the great chypres: Coty’s eponymous creation, Guerlain’s Mitsouko and Sous le Vent, Carven’s Ma Griffe, Aqua di Parma’s Profumo (both iterations), and Amouage Jubilation 25.

Looking at them in front of me on the table is like regarding a group of siblings, their ages spanning nearly an entire century. A few brunettes, a redhead, one jet black, a blonde––but, boy, they’ve all got that nose. I won’t use a word like aristocratic, but Mitsouko, Profumo and Jubilation 25 strike me as the real achievers of this family. They take a vital lesson from their father: follow your heart but keep your feet on the ground.

The nucleus of each is a triad of florals that veer toward the complex: rose, ylang ylang and jasmine. (If you added some carbon rings, you’d have the architecture of Chanel No 5.) And while this floral heart is important to the overall caress of the perfume, it’s those feet that make the real difference. Fine patchouli, frankincense, labdanum, oakmoss and vetiver. The flowers still sing but the rhythm is quickened, and there’s just this wondrous sonorous depth when everything comes together that reminds me of one of the segments of Mussorgsky/Rimsky-Korsakov’s Pictures at an Exhibition.

There’s nothing old-fashioned about them, except maybe the connotation of a studied blue-stocking elegance. More of us should get to know them and their makers better, and should encourage and support their survival in a world of cotton-candy-air and soulless haiku.

Image: Mitsouko advertisement, c. 1976.

Hope through Carnations

2009-02-22T17:00:00.000-08:00

If Shepard Fairey would like to donate his talents toward providing better PR for carnations, I would put him in touch immediately with Dawn Spencer Hurwitz, perhaps America’s most visually minded perfumer. Because it seems that they share an aesthetic. Her Oeillets Rouges are as high-contrast red as Red Square – all red cheeks, lips and hair flaming against a blue-black sky.

Let’s face it, despite being assigned a high place in Islamic art and culture, carnations aren’t exactly top-shelf in the West. In some societies, they’re even considered bad luck. (No surprise that when Coty released Oeillet de France in 1923, it was solely for export to the U.S.A.) Be that as it may, carnation soliflores are experiencing something of a mini-renaissance in Western perfumery. Witness two spectacular JAR perfumes, Golconda and Diamond Water and a Prada exclusive, not to mention Comme des Garçons Series 2 Red: Carnation. Hurwitz’s eau de parfum rests with some very fine company, indeed.

Hurwitz, whose Parfums des Beaux Art label hails from none other than Boulder, CO, is a perfumer whose tastes run to the classical but not the unadventurous. As Chandler Burr noted in a recent review, “It is, oddly, in the abstracts [Viridian, Quinacridone Violet, Celadon] that Spencer Hurwitz goes from good to much better.” Having tested several other of her soliflores, I would have to agree; but Oeillets Rouges, not a new scent of hers by any means, approaches abstraction in its stunning approximation of red. She should have named it Technicolor Red. It pops and sputters and sparks with pepper and spice and myrrh, then pirouettes to a rest like Moira Shearer in The Red Shoes.

Contra the maximalist approach of niche perfumer Neil Morris, whose recent perfume for the Japanese department store Takashimaya could stun a New York subway car into submission, the perfumes of Dawn Spencer Hurwitz betray a quiet American charm, and occasion in this reviewer the realization that, west of the Mississippi, still waters still do run deep.

Image credit: Josef Albers, Homage to the Square (Red), 1968. Norton-Simon Collection, Pasadena

Just Right

2009-02-16T13:04:00.000-08:00

A perfume can be very good but, with few exceptions, the drydown – a fragrance’s second skin – is what assigns it its place in history or consigns it to oblivion. Tacky sports car-driving fortysomethings notwithstanding, very few of us splash on fragrance seconds before meeting a special someone for dinner. (In fact, for me, the very presence of a bottle of cologne in the beverage-holder of a car is a burning sign to cut my losses and clear out immediately.) A good perfume or cologne introduces itself as a living memory, not a mask placed frantically over a less presentable facade.

Of late, I have been admiring two truly stellar, lighter-bodied unisex fragrances: perfumer Jean-Paul Guerlain’s Coriolan (1998; now re-christened and reformulated as L’Ame d’un Héros, 2008) and perfumer Françoise Caron’s Eau Fugace for Astier de Villatte (2008), each is an exemplar of perfection in the drydown.

Unlike the “head” and “heart” of a fragrance, the drydown is that phase of its evolution which best shows off its pedigree. A great drydown can never come from using shoddy, third-rate materials. For Coriolan, the drydown is a brief poème chypré of oakmoss, patchouli and helichrysum (otherwise known as everlasting flower); for Eau Fugace, its a takeoff on traditional eau de cologne but with written for Romantic strings, mainly petitgrain, basil, thyme and patchouli. One is cool, one warm.

Neither Coriolan nor Eau Fugace is reinventing the wheel. These certainly aren’t scents for the treasury, but there is a quiet, limpid, just-right sort of elegance about them that should land them a place in any man’s (or woman’s) life.

In this Light of Mars: Noir Epices (2000)

2009-01-27T19:54:00.000-08:00

At some point early in this decade, before oriental became subsumed under oriental-woody – before, that is, the middle-finger of perfumery was lopped off – Michel Roudnitska created Noir Epices for Frédéric Malle’s Edition de Parfums. It was one of the series’ inaugural perfumes, and remains sans doute one of its best. While it is neither the shoulder-pad-clad career-bitch perfume that Opium and Cinnabar are, nor the opoponax and vanilla confection that Shalimar is, nor even the date-lipped arabesque of Serge Lutens’ Arabie, it is oriental through and through.

Luca Turin speaks to its medicinal character, a view which, on account of clove, I won’t discount; but Noir Epices is something more than a clove-studded pomander of orange and rose. For me, it is an abstraction of cinnamon – and a non-Lutens’style abstraction at that. It grows, I believe, from a moody cinnamon that eschews all that happy-homemaker/pie-in-the-oven suburban bunkum. It is the sort of cinnamon that would feel at home (indeed!) in a scene from Buñuel’s Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie or a Genet television play. Sad, but with an abiding sense of the nourishing absurd.

It is a disorienting scent, one that leads you out into a barren desert place and then confronts you, like a woman approaching out of nowhere with a book which, when opened, cannot be read. You turn the page and hear a child’s voice (orange blossom), next the voice of its mother (geranium absolute). It seems then that the sun has been replaced behind your back. Instead of slanting light, there is a strange neon intensity (nutmeg) and the nagging feeling that (that) nothing (sandalwood) that ever pleases you is just nice.

Infini de Caron (1970)

2009-01-13T20:31:00.000-08:00

For the past four months I have grappled with writing a review of Caron Infini. Not that I’m turned off by this once-venerable house, like most are. (Yes, like everything, things have changed; thus, I keep my expectations low.) Probably it has more to do with coming to terms with a perfume of my mother’s generation – one that represents not revolutionary fervor but upper-middle-class entrenchment – and finding its restraint unexpectedly beguiling.

Back in pre-World War I Paris, Ernest Daltroff had created a perfume called [L’]Infini [Souvenance], which few have ever smelled, but the version known today was created in 1970 by Gerard Lefort, the perfumer responsible for Caron’s swansong Nocturnes in 1981. According to Richard Fraysse, Caron’s current nose, “[Infini] needed a lot of research to reach the perfect harmony between the “green” start, the aldehyde floral heart, and the wooded base.” Making matters even more complicated, the Caron website makes a distinction between Infini “the perfume,” apparently only available now in EDT concentration (1.7 ounce atomizer bottle) and L’Infini (note the definite article), “an extremely concentrated version of this perfume” in the original Serge Mansau assymetrical geometric flacon (∞), which was released in 2000 in order to “give women the pleasure of needing only a touch of perfume to create an infinite vapor trail.” (If you like Sir Denys Lasdun’s Royal National Theatre complex and Stanley Kubrick set design, you’ll like the parfum bottle. It’s super cool in a super-wonky sort of way.)

Despite its being a skin-scent after about 20 minutes, Infini in the EDT concentration is perhaps a better representation of the 1970 formula, which I have only been able to confirm was made in extrait, EDC, PDT and EDT. According to Jean-Yves Gaborit in his book Parfum: Prestige et Haute Couture (Fribourg, 1985), the formula contains Grasse and Bulgarian rose, jonquil, lily of the valley, iris, peach, plum, vetiver, sandalwood and civet. (No doubt, minus the civet since Alès Group took over Caron in 1988.) The Caron Web site mentions only tuberose, jonquil, sandalwood, vetiver and lily of the valley.

To my nose, there isn’t a tuberose to be found for miles. Instead, what I get is a very pleasant – and short-lived – rose accord followed by a sustained white floral aldehydic of the squeaky clean, soapy variety which would reach its full realization in Sofja Grosjman’s White Linen for Estée Lauder in 1978. On those attributes alone, I’d take White Linen any day, but Lafort’s skill here is apparent in a space-age green metallic note that half-reminds me of the smell that Reynold’s Wrap tin foil gave off when I was a kid and, more recently, a herbal metallic facet of the green opening notes of Creed Original Chèvrefeuille.

With a genealogy so long and confusing, I begin to wonder whether Infini weren’t some elaborate pun for a fragrance that will be reinvented for ∞.

A Certain Slant of Light

2009-01-06T17:35:00.000-08:00

For Mark

This past summer I had occasion to write a short description of Dominique Ropion’s Une Fleur de Cassie. It’s short enough to reproduce here:

“Une Fleur de Cassie is as beautiful a perfume as they come. It’s like the feeling that comes when you’ve finished a chapter of Colette; a feeling, that is, wagered on the piling up of pastel adjectives – the prose equivalent of a Renoir oil sketch. Mimosas and almond milk and pearls held up in the light. It’s a floral that doesn’t project the aura of flowers. It’s a meal and a kiss and a brush stroke all in one.”

With the exception of his Amarige, I am an unabashed fan of Ropion. I adore Aimez-Moi on others; I love Vetiver Extraordinaire on myself and pretty much anyone in my immediate vicinity; and Carnal Flower, while not my cuppa tea, is very Something. Ropion is one of a dying - or rather, dead - breed of perfumers: a Classicist who’s initial capital is hard-won. He is one of those perfumers, not unlike Roudnitska père, who build a perfume from the bottom up; who see the idea of a perfume as less its gimmick than its inchoate form.

Une Fleur de Cassie is a trophy fragrance, a perfume that stands out from the rest of the pack like a Vionnet gown stands out in a starlet-of-yore’s closet. It isn’t about glitz or post-Eighties’ sex-appeal. It’s about Eleganz. It’s about a Bugatti Type 41 “Royale” crunching the gravel on its 5mph procession up a long driveway somewhere in Cove Neck. It’s about a cool April night when you’ve left all the windows open in hopes that spring (and love) have come to stay. Your nose is greeted with the most marvelous scents wafting in from the garden, but you must admit, as you reach for the box of tissues, that you’re a tad cold.

Sure, he used some very pricey ingredients - mimosa absolute, jasmine absolute, cassie absolute, rose absolute - but the parts do not justify the whole, which is much more complex than any ingredient list. It’s as if Ropion let a certain slant of light enter in between each layer of the finished product, and what’s more, he used sandalwood and vanillin in his base with such mastery as to create something on par with vintage Guerlain but worlds - galaxies - apart in style.

Just thinking about Une Fleur de Cassie makes me happy, and there are few perfumes that do that these days.

Image credit: Dale Chihuly, “Macchia” blown-glass bowl (1982), courtesy of ArtNet.

2008: The Year of the Perfumista

2009-01-02T11:10:00.000-08:00

What did the marketer learn in 2008?

That the consumer she’s pitching to is 3 times more likely to be a man than in 2007

That assigning the tag “niche” to a perfume house doesn’t make it better or higher in quality; likewise, that niche does not right off the bat spell luxury or the justification of an astronomical SRP

That “wardrobing” in fragrances is a good idea, even within a brand

That flankers have begun to wobble
That markdowns at high-end retailers may be on the horizon, if not very generous incentives to help the sale along

That natural perfumery, fraught with a lot of its own self-taught marketing bunkum, is a greater adversary than previously thought

That there’s an art to marketing a fragrance beyond two-word tag lines and cleavage shots

What did the consumer learn in 2008?

To be more honest about his or her likes and dislikes

To reconsider the past. To reconsider the smell of the past

That, in some cases, the mighty (houses) have fallen

That a fragrance can be as much about a place (or memory) as about desired personae or objects of desire

That it’s OK to put on enough that people actually can smell it

To like a well-designed bottle as much as the good stuff inside

To enjoy reading and bitching about perfume

To appreciate complexity

To identify notes

To own more than two

Some highlights I’m proud of are my January–February 2008 series on Middle Eastern perfumery, my Roses for Men posting, my Search for the Perfect Vetiver, and my rebuttal to New York Times critic Chandler Burr. Here’s to a happy and healthy 2009!

Image credit: Gourielli Fourth Dimension advertisement, c.1953