10/06/2021
Profumo
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Nürburgring, July 28, 1935...
I have smelled this combination of gasoline and oud notes before.
Shortly after I had sprayed 'Nuvolari' for the first time I also knew where: at Kilian's 'Pure Oud'. Unfortunately, I no longer have the sample of Kilian's scent (would probably be too old anyway), so a direct comparison is no longer possible, but I remember that it created a similar image in my imagination. At the time, I saw Sean Connery as an oil-smeared mechanic with a whiskey in his hand.
Well, in the case of 'Nuvolari' I'll leave out the whiskey, and it doesn't have to be Sean Connery anymore, but the oil-smeared cleavage of a car mechanic will do.
Or rather, let's say: the setting during a pit stop, when scurrying mechanics change the tires of a hot-running race car at lightning speed.
Not that I have experienced such a real, no, but an idea of this particular olfactory situation is able to give me the fragrance credible: Oil and gasoline vapors, red-hot metal, stewing rubber, and anno 1935 (the year in which the "Flying Mantuan", Tazio Nuvolari, won the 'Grand Prix of Germany' on the Nürburgring) probably also still sweat-damp leather.
Actually, I'm not interested in car racing the bean, quite the opposite: I would hardly know a sport that I found more stupid. As a passionate bicycle and if necessary train driver, who has never made a driver's license out of conviction, I bring so of no understanding at all for this Boliden Gerase and Geröhre on that I should disregard a fragrance, which tries to approach this nonsense olfactorily actually just as.
But far from it, I can not: 'Nuvolari' smells just too good!
Alone this prelude! This voluminous-dark blooming of leathery, oily, smoky and subtly animalic facets, interspersed with fresh, peppery-aromatic streaks - this is simply stunning and somehow reminded me of the moment when I first smelled 'Tabac Blond' by Caron. That said, the similarities between the two fragrances are manageable. But it is this aura that I find again here, this leathery-smoky triumph, this rich volume.
Cristiano Canali is simply a magician.
Apart from Antonio Gardoni's creations, it's his that I've been most impatiently awaiting for a long time.
When I then saw recently in a film sequence shot at the last Pitti Fragranze, that the small from Mantua originating fragrance label Rubini has launched after years again a new fragrance, and this as before the other two from the pen of Canali, there was no hesitation more - he had to get here, just so and untested, because Canali can not disappoint me, just as little Gardoni.
And he did not.
'Nuvolari' may not be as innovative as 'Fundamental', not as daring and polarizing as 'Tambour Sacré', but the fragrance is on the same high artistic level. Well, in terms of leather, smoke and oud we have truly been sufficiently supplied in recent years, but the combination with metallic notes, with gasoline, machine oil and tar is quite idiosyncratic. Similarly idiosyncratic as, for example, 'Type Writer' by Parfumerie Particulière, which 'Nuvolari' reminds me of as well, only that the Rubini fragrance always remains a perfume, while 'Type Writer' only becomes one in the base. Before that, it is actually for me only a conditionally wearable industrial smell.
Nuvolari' is also remotely reminiscent of Montale's 'Aoud Cuir d'Arabie', but only concerning the staging of the oud, which here smells similarly smoky-leathery, but fortunately only subcutaneously animalic pulses, while it really hits me in the pit of my stomach at Montale.
Canali manages to tame it halfway, but still lets it off the leash. And so it forms on the one hand the linchpin of the olfactory action, but fortunately does not push itself unduly into the foreground, lines up, also lets others shine. Regarding the inspiration for this fragrance - the racing legend Tazio Nuvolari and his triumph at the Nürburgring, with an Alfa Romeo that was actually hopelessly inferior to the German Silver Arrows - in this context, the complex olfactory palette of the incense wood finds a truly convincing environment.
Like a spider in a web, Canali locates the oud in his formula, but does not allow the web less importance. Or to put it another way: the oud stands, as it were, for the engine of the Alfa Romeo. But there is also the metal of the chassis, the leather of the seats, the rubber tires on the asphalt, the cutting sharp wind - all this is 'Nuvolari'.
Thanks to the perfumer, the aptly named 'Extrait de Course' sticks to this narrative, and does not turn in the base towards a conciliatory balsamic-soft, sweet-oriental melange. No, even if another fear opponent on my part (in addition to the oud) appears here, I must admit, also has here no less its raison d'être: Ambroxan.
If the oud takes over the part of the engine, the Ambroxan comes to the task of lubricating oil: it keeps the store running, lets the energies flow and emulsifies the recalcitrant components. That leathery-smoky nuances and ambroxan are wonderfully combinable, I could already experience recently with Piguet's 'Bandit Suprême', and now here. The amber substitute from the lab actually makes the notes blossom, taking away the overly harsh, edgy without completely blurring it. Also, the so-typical, slightly synthetic sweetness of this molecule, which I usually find unpleasant, doesn't bother me at all here. No, that is somehow already everything right so, that should be so!
Speaking of typical:
Typical for the Rubini design are yes also the two stencil-like shells, which protect the bottle, but not completely enclose. Are they at Fundamental from a light plaster-like material, at 'Tambour Sacré' from dark wood, was chosen for 'Nuvolari' an anthracite-colored asphalt shell, held together by a wide rubber band reminiscent of a V-belt. So here too, everything wonderfully stringent thought out, elaborated and convincingly implemented.
In his reply e-mail wrote me the owner of Rubini, Andrea Rubini:
"Since 2015, Rubini channels my passion with a daring vision for high perfumery and genuine research with no fears for new paths, working only with the best raw materials and without time pressures.
My friend, the perfumer Cristiano Canali, is helping me to realize the dream."
I find, this claim implement the two absolutely convincing.
Shortly after I had sprayed 'Nuvolari' for the first time I also knew where: at Kilian's 'Pure Oud'. Unfortunately, I no longer have the sample of Kilian's scent (would probably be too old anyway), so a direct comparison is no longer possible, but I remember that it created a similar image in my imagination. At the time, I saw Sean Connery as an oil-smeared mechanic with a whiskey in his hand.
Well, in the case of 'Nuvolari' I'll leave out the whiskey, and it doesn't have to be Sean Connery anymore, but the oil-smeared cleavage of a car mechanic will do.
Or rather, let's say: the setting during a pit stop, when scurrying mechanics change the tires of a hot-running race car at lightning speed.
Not that I have experienced such a real, no, but an idea of this particular olfactory situation is able to give me the fragrance credible: Oil and gasoline vapors, red-hot metal, stewing rubber, and anno 1935 (the year in which the "Flying Mantuan", Tazio Nuvolari, won the 'Grand Prix of Germany' on the Nürburgring) probably also still sweat-damp leather.
Actually, I'm not interested in car racing the bean, quite the opposite: I would hardly know a sport that I found more stupid. As a passionate bicycle and if necessary train driver, who has never made a driver's license out of conviction, I bring so of no understanding at all for this Boliden Gerase and Geröhre on that I should disregard a fragrance, which tries to approach this nonsense olfactorily actually just as.
But far from it, I can not: 'Nuvolari' smells just too good!
Alone this prelude! This voluminous-dark blooming of leathery, oily, smoky and subtly animalic facets, interspersed with fresh, peppery-aromatic streaks - this is simply stunning and somehow reminded me of the moment when I first smelled 'Tabac Blond' by Caron. That said, the similarities between the two fragrances are manageable. But it is this aura that I find again here, this leathery-smoky triumph, this rich volume.
Cristiano Canali is simply a magician.
Apart from Antonio Gardoni's creations, it's his that I've been most impatiently awaiting for a long time.
When I then saw recently in a film sequence shot at the last Pitti Fragranze, that the small from Mantua originating fragrance label Rubini has launched after years again a new fragrance, and this as before the other two from the pen of Canali, there was no hesitation more - he had to get here, just so and untested, because Canali can not disappoint me, just as little Gardoni.
And he did not.
'Nuvolari' may not be as innovative as 'Fundamental', not as daring and polarizing as 'Tambour Sacré', but the fragrance is on the same high artistic level. Well, in terms of leather, smoke and oud we have truly been sufficiently supplied in recent years, but the combination with metallic notes, with gasoline, machine oil and tar is quite idiosyncratic. Similarly idiosyncratic as, for example, 'Type Writer' by Parfumerie Particulière, which 'Nuvolari' reminds me of as well, only that the Rubini fragrance always remains a perfume, while 'Type Writer' only becomes one in the base. Before that, it is actually for me only a conditionally wearable industrial smell.
Nuvolari' is also remotely reminiscent of Montale's 'Aoud Cuir d'Arabie', but only concerning the staging of the oud, which here smells similarly smoky-leathery, but fortunately only subcutaneously animalic pulses, while it really hits me in the pit of my stomach at Montale.
Canali manages to tame it halfway, but still lets it off the leash. And so it forms on the one hand the linchpin of the olfactory action, but fortunately does not push itself unduly into the foreground, lines up, also lets others shine. Regarding the inspiration for this fragrance - the racing legend Tazio Nuvolari and his triumph at the Nürburgring, with an Alfa Romeo that was actually hopelessly inferior to the German Silver Arrows - in this context, the complex olfactory palette of the incense wood finds a truly convincing environment.
Like a spider in a web, Canali locates the oud in his formula, but does not allow the web less importance. Or to put it another way: the oud stands, as it were, for the engine of the Alfa Romeo. But there is also the metal of the chassis, the leather of the seats, the rubber tires on the asphalt, the cutting sharp wind - all this is 'Nuvolari'.
Thanks to the perfumer, the aptly named 'Extrait de Course' sticks to this narrative, and does not turn in the base towards a conciliatory balsamic-soft, sweet-oriental melange. No, even if another fear opponent on my part (in addition to the oud) appears here, I must admit, also has here no less its raison d'être: Ambroxan.
If the oud takes over the part of the engine, the Ambroxan comes to the task of lubricating oil: it keeps the store running, lets the energies flow and emulsifies the recalcitrant components. That leathery-smoky nuances and ambroxan are wonderfully combinable, I could already experience recently with Piguet's 'Bandit Suprême', and now here. The amber substitute from the lab actually makes the notes blossom, taking away the overly harsh, edgy without completely blurring it. Also, the so-typical, slightly synthetic sweetness of this molecule, which I usually find unpleasant, doesn't bother me at all here. No, that is somehow already everything right so, that should be so!
Speaking of typical:
Typical for the Rubini design are yes also the two stencil-like shells, which protect the bottle, but not completely enclose. Are they at Fundamental from a light plaster-like material, at 'Tambour Sacré' from dark wood, was chosen for 'Nuvolari' an anthracite-colored asphalt shell, held together by a wide rubber band reminiscent of a V-belt. So here too, everything wonderfully stringent thought out, elaborated and convincingly implemented.
In his reply e-mail wrote me the owner of Rubini, Andrea Rubini:
"Since 2015, Rubini channels my passion with a daring vision for high perfumery and genuine research with no fears for new paths, working only with the best raw materials and without time pressures.
My friend, the perfumer Cristiano Canali, is helping me to realize the dream."
I find, this claim implement the two absolutely convincing.
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