Boozy Tuesday

Botrytis, Sauvignonne and Le Boisé by Ginestet

Review by Tom

Last week March posted about sweet scents loved and loathed, and commenters Teri and Sweetlife reminded me of the delicious Ginestet Botrytis; a lucious scent that I had tried but never reviewed. Ginestet is a French vintner of renown, founded 100 years ago in Bordeaux. They have entered the perfume market with wine-based (sort of) scents, each quite beautiful.

Sauvignonne lists grapefruit, box tree, white peach with a base of dry white bordeaux (which begs the question why it's not called Bordeaunonne or something). It's a lovely citrus with just a touch of white wine note: as refreshing as a glass of white sangria, it also seems a bit more long-lived than most citrus scents I've run across. I don't know that I need another citrus scent, but if you are in the market for one, this is worth a sniff.

Le Boisé is less sweet than the other two and is somewhat marketed as a man's scent; it's packaged the most overtly winey- in a miniature wine bottle in a wooden box. It's a very nice wooded spicey concoction, but I sort of wish it's initial wine note stayed around longer. It's non intrusive in the way that some cedars can be, it was equally at home with the heat of the afternoon and the arctic chill of my office.

Botrytis lists honey, candied fruits, quince, pain d’epice, white flowers and a base of Sauterne. If Miel de Bois is killer bees on crack, then Botrytis is honeybees on ecstasy. I could barely unweld my nose from my forearm for the rest of the day. The gorgeous glottal honeycomb note stays around for quite a while, finally ceding to the flowery fruits, but never completely going away. The latter two on their own are merely pleasant compared to this, but that's damning with faint praise. Kate Jackson and Jacklyn Smith were eclipsed by Farrah's white-hot celebrity, but that didn't mean that they didn't have their own allure.

Botrytis is white-hot beautiful.

These are available at Beautyhabit and Luckyscent, $100 for 100ml