Le Grand Tour Pierre Bourdon 2015

Master perfumer Bourdon has certainly earned a star on my Walk of Fame after Green Irish Tweed! I still find French Lover and Jil Sander Sun (women's fragrance) to be unique scents, so I was more than happy to take the plunge with a blind swap... there wasn't much that could go wrong;-)!
I was all the more curious about his style in his own line... I can already reveal this much... it's a good one:-)!
Le Grand Tour is advertised on its own page with a convertible ride in the area around Portofino... well, those are already nice images... even if you'd rather keep your eyes open there... otherwise it would be called Le Fine Tour;-)! Anyway... Grand Tour starts off great, with everything you might associate with Portofino or the entire coastal area, wonderful ripe citrus fruits, a hint of watermelon (no comparison to Kenzo PH) and maritime, slightly salty notes. At temperatures around 20 degrees and sunshine, it's easy for the fragrance to delight with this top note. Everything feels elegant and very homogeneous, there is no dominant note that shapes the fragrance from start to finish, a charming mix that you already know very well, hence no grand, indulgent, and prolonged "Ahhhhh" or "Mhhhhh"! More of a solid "that's fine"! Here, the quality and value of the notes used stand out, no lab lemons, no aquatic notes from the Procter & Gamble shelf... like shower gel notes... no... it feels refined... but he emphasizes this clearly on his own page.
As it develops further, you can detect a subtle lavender and a noticeably stronger tonka bean... these two notes also flatter the nose, but that's probably the case with every fragrance, so nothing entirely new. The wonderful musk can also ultimately convince me... it all fits, but since the heart note, I increasingly suspect... you know this fragrance!!! And indeed, I know it... it combines elements from three fragrances: Allure PH, Allure PH Sport (citrus fruits and aquatic notes), and Allure Sport PH Eau Extreme (musk)... it has something from each, least of all from the regular Allure PH. Of course, none of the three fragrances are nose-wrinklers... but it's not exactly a grand olfactory spectacle either. The longevity is similar to that of the Chanel brothers, just under 6 hours, and the sillage is similarly present.
Conclusion: A beautiful fragrance, pleasing, rounded, and valuable; anyone looking for a "more valuable" and slightly finer Allure will be very well served here, especially since 100ml only costs €95, even if it unfortunately lacks the unmistakable character, so it can happily move on. The bottle and its box are made very high-quality and look a bit more impressive in the bathroom than the double Cs;-)