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10/10/2020
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Colonial products XIII: Pizza Grano Saraceno
I can't mix perfumes, I've never taken a weekend perfumery course like this, I leave that to the professionals. But I'm a pretty good cook. I used to cook by cookbook, but lately I've become confident and experienced enough to experiment on demand
If I were given the task of baking a "Pizza Russa", I would not try to recreate Russian specialties and pour borscht over the pizza instead of tomato sauce or cook the dough in the style of pelmeni instead of baking it.
I would choose a basic Italian pizza recipe with crispy dough, (rich) tomato sauce with oregano and (rather little) cheese and then add a lot of vegetarian food, some vegetables, carrots maybe (onions not at all), in any case a lot of rocket. And then pine nuts (or even better maybe walnuts, you should see). And my Russian highlight at the end would be: Fragrant roasted buckwheat (Italian "grano saraceno") sprinkled on top. That would be a thoroughly Italian pizza, but with a somehow woodsy-bearded-Slavic-looking quote, and I wouldn't care if it was "real" Russian, and the guests probably wouldn't either.
I think that's how the perfumer of Santa Maria Novella (whose name is not known) proceeded: By conjuring up an arch-classical, very Mediterranean cologne with a playful Russian twist. In perfumery, "Russian" is often more or less synonymous with "Russian leather" and that in turn means "birch tar". This is not the way to go here. Instead, a bit of Russian-swabby, brown-spicy impression, which breaks up the cheerful citric Cologne gift a bit, is achieved with cloves and benzoin
I think that's a great idea! The fragrance begins at first sniff as a beautiful bergamot cologne (not a solifruct, but a citrusy cologne blend with bergamot preponderance; but little lemon, hardly any pungency or acidity), including tart and fresh green, almost floral tendencies. That seems so much like erzitalienisch and megaklassisch.
But the whole thing also looks a bit trapped or cushioned from the very first moment, if you smell it carefully, as if someone is standing with one foot on the accelerator of the Ferrari and tapping the brake with the other. Not that it's faint or fogged in a cloud of musk or chemicals, but more as if the scent is trying not to shoot its powder too briskly because something else is coming. Soon a fine clove note makes room in the resulting gap, which never comes too much to the fore and never develops into a spicy bouquet: This never turns into a Tabac Original or Old Spice, it always remains a citrusy cologne at first, but with a spicy flavour. And towards the end, a beautiful balsamic benzoin is added to the fragrance.
It's unspectacular, it's simple, but it's good
For the time being my score is 8 points. Maybe I'll readjust it. If so, then probably upwards, when I will have tested again in a more adequate, warmer season.
* *
Yatagan has already said a lot about the history of the company in his review of the aftershave brother of this fragrance. If one can trust the official information of the manufacturer, its roots lie in a monastery pharmacy in Florence around the year 1200. Then in 1612 the monks went public and opened a formal pharmacy outside the monastery walls, with which they earned money and which was also well received in aristocratic circles. In 1866 the church property was secularized and the state gave the pharmacy to a private person; it remained in the possession of this family for several generations. Today it seems to have been sold, to whom exactly is something unclear, but in any case not to a large corporation.
The company operates two linked homepages, one more to present the company and its history - https://www.smnovella.com/ - and one as an online shop - https://buy.smnovella.eu/ENG/
The pages are wonderfully designed and opulently illustrated (typically Italian in the best sense of the word), but unfortunately a bit confused. One gets lost all the time, which is why I can't find the historical outline, from which I quoted above from memory, at the moment.
You can buy the products not only online or in Italy, but also in a few selected shops in Germany; in Berlin at MDC in the Knaackstraße, where I want to go for a fragrance walk soon.
I find the bottle so beautiful (on the pictures) that I deviate from my rule and rate it (with 10) without having it in my hand.
If I were given the task of baking a "Pizza Russa", I would not try to recreate Russian specialties and pour borscht over the pizza instead of tomato sauce or cook the dough in the style of pelmeni instead of baking it.
I would choose a basic Italian pizza recipe with crispy dough, (rich) tomato sauce with oregano and (rather little) cheese and then add a lot of vegetarian food, some vegetables, carrots maybe (onions not at all), in any case a lot of rocket. And then pine nuts (or even better maybe walnuts, you should see). And my Russian highlight at the end would be: Fragrant roasted buckwheat (Italian "grano saraceno") sprinkled on top. That would be a thoroughly Italian pizza, but with a somehow woodsy-bearded-Slavic-looking quote, and I wouldn't care if it was "real" Russian, and the guests probably wouldn't either.
I think that's how the perfumer of Santa Maria Novella (whose name is not known) proceeded: By conjuring up an arch-classical, very Mediterranean cologne with a playful Russian twist. In perfumery, "Russian" is often more or less synonymous with "Russian leather" and that in turn means "birch tar". This is not the way to go here. Instead, a bit of Russian-swabby, brown-spicy impression, which breaks up the cheerful citric Cologne gift a bit, is achieved with cloves and benzoin
I think that's a great idea! The fragrance begins at first sniff as a beautiful bergamot cologne (not a solifruct, but a citrusy cologne blend with bergamot preponderance; but little lemon, hardly any pungency or acidity), including tart and fresh green, almost floral tendencies. That seems so much like erzitalienisch and megaklassisch.
But the whole thing also looks a bit trapped or cushioned from the very first moment, if you smell it carefully, as if someone is standing with one foot on the accelerator of the Ferrari and tapping the brake with the other. Not that it's faint or fogged in a cloud of musk or chemicals, but more as if the scent is trying not to shoot its powder too briskly because something else is coming. Soon a fine clove note makes room in the resulting gap, which never comes too much to the fore and never develops into a spicy bouquet: This never turns into a Tabac Original or Old Spice, it always remains a citrusy cologne at first, but with a spicy flavour. And towards the end, a beautiful balsamic benzoin is added to the fragrance.
It's unspectacular, it's simple, but it's good
For the time being my score is 8 points. Maybe I'll readjust it. If so, then probably upwards, when I will have tested again in a more adequate, warmer season.
* *
Yatagan has already said a lot about the history of the company in his review of the aftershave brother of this fragrance. If one can trust the official information of the manufacturer, its roots lie in a monastery pharmacy in Florence around the year 1200. Then in 1612 the monks went public and opened a formal pharmacy outside the monastery walls, with which they earned money and which was also well received in aristocratic circles. In 1866 the church property was secularized and the state gave the pharmacy to a private person; it remained in the possession of this family for several generations. Today it seems to have been sold, to whom exactly is something unclear, but in any case not to a large corporation.
The company operates two linked homepages, one more to present the company and its history - https://www.smnovella.com/ - and one as an online shop - https://buy.smnovella.eu/ENG/
The pages are wonderfully designed and opulently illustrated (typically Italian in the best sense of the word), but unfortunately a bit confused. One gets lost all the time, which is why I can't find the historical outline, from which I quoted above from memory, at the moment.
You can buy the products not only online or in Italy, but also in a few selected shops in Germany; in Berlin at MDC in the Knaackstraße, where I want to go for a fragrance walk soon.
I find the bottle so beautiful (on the pictures) that I deviate from my rule and rate it (with 10) without having it in my hand.
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