The "Vintages Are All Fine" Mentality

When I entered the world of fragrance, several unusual mentalities became apparent to me in regards to how enthusiasts (not "connoisseurs") viewed perfume. An example of this is the strange desire for people to refer to themselves as "connoisseurs" of perfume, instead of "enthusiasts." To label oneself a fragrance "connoisseur" suggests there is a subset of the fragrance collecting population that understands and enjoys a level of quality and exclusivity that the average population generally misses out on, which I believe is false, and a misuse of the label. Its falsehood resides in the fact that the supposed connoisseurship of perfumes is almost always associated with the necessity to own a large quantity of expensive, hard to find fragrances. Many self-proclaimed connoisseurs own hundreds of perfumes. In my opinion, these are the very people who are not perfume connoisseurs. They are enthusiastic about a wide range of scents, yet are deeply knowledgeable about few to none. The sheer scale of their collections renders them impartial to the idea of loving just one.

If you're a man who only owns and wears one bottle of perfume at a time, you are enjoying the fragrance and its functionality even more than the person who has that same perfume in a collection of several hundred others. The man with one perfume that he has worn for years also knows that perfume better, recognizes it faster, and appreciates its structure and movements with more clarity and understanding than the guy who gets around to it once every two or three months in a wide rotation. Thus, connoisseurship of perfume applies realistically to someone's appreciation of one specific fragrance, based on an affinity and somewhat obsessive allegiance to it. It makes little sense to consider connoisseurship of fragrance as an over-arching love for only the "best" fragrances. The overwhelming subjectivity of what constitutes the "best" nullifies the meaning of the word.

I've had people tell me, "Bryan, you can't have it both ways. If perfume is a luxury, as you always say it is, then there are those who can be classified as 'perfume connoisseurs.'" Wrong. Perfume is a luxury, yes, but luxury is defined more broadly than people realize. When one hears the word luxury, visions of expensive Beluga caviar and fine mink coats swirl about. But luxury is defined by the Merriam Webster dictionary as:

• a condition or situation of great comfort, ease, and wealth

• something that is expensive and not necessary

• something that is helpful or welcome and not usually or always available

That last bullet point applies to perfume. Perfume is not necessarily expensive and extravagant. However, it is not always available, like running water, for example. Travel to certain parts of South America, Africa, and Asia, and you will find that something as seemingly basic as running water is absent from the shortlist of contemporary amenities. You can, however, live without it, as long as some form of water is available and readily accessible. Jump in a river for a wash, and boil a vat of it to drink. If you spend a few weeks or months on the road in rural India, which is currently home for over one billion people, and then return to New York City, running water clearly becomes a luxury. It is something to be enjoyed and valued, but not taken for granted. Yet no one considers themselves connoisseurs of running water.

Likewise, perfume is fairly common in the developed world (even India lays a claim to fame for continuing to produce a Shulton-branded version of Old Spice), yet we do not need it to survive. The poor would sooner install running water in their abodes than bottles of Old Spice. True poverty, a condition in which billions of people live, would place the cheapest perfume at the rock bottom of a list of wants and needs. Those of us who can afford it without a second thought, even if only a few dollars are spent, are enjoying a luxury. The classification of luxury as such does not need adjustment; it is the classification of perfume that requires close inspection.

Another strange idea that swirls about among perfumistas is the notion that perfume never goes bad. For some, perfume is something mysteriously immune to the effects of time. They feel that if you take care of a bottle of fragrance by keeping it out of harsh temperatures and direct sunlight, it can remain fairly pristine for many decades, and possibly centuries. There have been articles about archeologists finding ancient perfume specimens, hundreds of years old, which supposedly smell surprisingly fresh after countless years at the bottom of the sea, or under the Earth. However, you have to take these accounts with a grain of salt, and apply the same attitude to those who claim they have never encountered a "bad" bottle of vintage perfume.

Two weeks ago it was reported that scientists discovered 170 year-old bottles of Champagne on the floor of the Baltic Sea. According to the report, the scientists tasted the Champagne and were "amazed by how well the wine had aged under the sea." They described its flavor as "grilled, spicy, smoky, and leathery, together with fruity and floral notes." They also said that the Champagne had sugar in the amount of twenty ounces per gallon, an astounding quantity by any measure, about seven times the sugar content of a can of Coke. One can infer from this that the wine's flavor was also "sweet."

Predictably, the comments under the article were scathing. One person wrote:

"It sounds to me that this wine tastes like a 70 year old leather boot with foot sweat dragged through a flower field and then grilled. At least thats what came to my mind. And that doesn't sound very pleasant."

And another added:

"Six times the sugar of Coke? That sounds like a diabetic coma."

And yet another said:

"If that condition is 'close to perfect,' wine producers could just easily throw every bottle of wine they produce under the sea and let them age perfectly."

Which is not something any contemporary wineries are seriously attempting to do, with the exception of a few "experimental" vintages, as apparently some houses are fiddling around with the idea of salt water aging.

The Smithsonian reports that a leading scientist in this discovery tasted the stuff, and felt it was "incredible." He claimed he "had never tasted such a wine," and that its flavor - no, its "aroma" for fuck's sakes - lingered on his presumably refined palate for hours afterward. Further descriptions from this quarter include "cheese" and "wet hair," in case your mouth wasn't already watering enough. But based on this scientific report and the archeological aging of the caskets, these wines were touted as "collector's items," and several were auctioned off for up to 100,000 Euros. Others were tucked away for further investigation, to eventually become museum pieces.

One obvious problem with these reports is that they're referring to something that 99.999% of the world's population will never taste. How nice would it be if one of these scientists actually told the truth about what they were tasting? Instead of saying the brine-tainted swill is "incredible," say "this stuff tastes like clam shit," and discourage wealthy morons from wasting six figures on the rusted bottles. Not that I care if wealthy idiots blow their loads on liters of decayed garbage, but I'm frightened at the prospect of reading about the "market" for completely spoiled antique Champagne. I've heard enough about make-believe commercial markets to last me a lifetime, and do not need my attention brought to any new ones.

I have read blog posts that mention similar discoveries of supposedly well-preserved bottles of centuries-old perfume, with scientists making similar claims about their freshness. With perfume, people seemed more willing to believe the reports, despite the fact that hundreds of years ago perfumers used only natural materials, much the same as wine makers. So it is not a stretch to believe that reports of pristine perfumes dating back centuries are at best sensationalized exaggerations. Likewise, it is almost impossible and certainly unacceptable to believe at face value that 170 year-old Champagne with seven times the sugar content of contemporary soft drinks, and several times the salt content of contemporary Champagne, tastes "incredible." Last I checked, notes of "cheese" and "wet hair" were stomach-turners. No one has ever used them to describe a high vintage of Champagne. Ever.

But there's an obvious reason why the scientist in the Smithsonian report used those descriptors. One comment from a reader on Yahoo struck me as particularly prescient:

"Since we'll never taste it for ourselves, they can just lie and say it's the most amazing thing ever, and act all snooty towards us mere civilians who wouldn't be able to appreciate such fineries."

This seems to be the likely train of thought at play here. Acquire an extremely rare vintage of something extremely rare to begin with, shuttle it away to private labs, sip, sip, and render verdict: "Incredible!" Let that one word resound across the ranks of the elite few who can afford to spend almost limitless amounts on bottles of the stuff (imagine an entire market for something with only ten or fifteen dedicated buyers), and feel important for the rest of your life.

This is the mentality of many perfume enthusiasts who tout vintage fragrances as being largely undamaged by time and utterly worth whatever dollar amount you can throw into acquiring them. Find a very rare perfume, buy it, wear it, and write it up as being a truly beautiful fragrance. Then feel the boost to your ego as a sense of superiority courses through your veins. You've found something nobody else will find. You've smelled it, but you don't have any real presence in the community because you've been reviewing relatively popular perfumes, up until now. A glowing review of this super obscure thing will quickly lend your words some much-needed gravity. It will begin to make you seem important to newbies, to people without discernment.

This has happened to me as a reader. I encountered a review of Joint for Men, and considered the likelihood of its stated quality and value against the relevance of everything else its author had written. I suspected Joint was a good fragrance, but nowhere near as good as it was made out to be. Then I cross-referenced the glowing opinion against a few other opinions, which were sober in comparison.

A few years later I found Joint, bought it, and wore it. I suspect its reviewer believed I would never actually find the stuff. I wore it for a while. Unsurprisingly, the fragrance was merely "good." Its concept was excellent - a rowdy fern, full of musks and dusty woods, but its execution was lacking, with an oddly unbalanced drydown that revealed the use of cheap synthetics. Perhaps its civet note was natural, along with one or two other notes, but the rest of the construct was thinly grafted onto a basic white musk of little interest. Now, you could argue that my bottle was "off," but that would be conceding that this perfume is an example of an old fragrance gone bad. You might even argue that it wasn't taken care of, but it was boxed in ideal conditions when I bought it, so this is a difficult case to make, at least if you are trying to convince me. I think its quality was exaggerated, and I also think my bottle is a bit spoiled.

The Emperor's new clothes? Gone.

I've been accused of doing this myself, of course. My review of Nature Boy by Garner James was criticized as being overblown nonsense, because after all, how good can a perfume be? However, my critic, despite having an opportunity to try the scent by contacting the perfumer at Garner James, voluntarily passed up on the chance and basically said he wasn't interested in the scent anyway. Why one would choose to be ignorant of something they criticize is difficult to understand, but this person has never clarified their reasoning.

I'll conclude this lengthy post by saying that there's some of the conceited snob in all of us, and nobody is immune to the sin of exaggeration for the sake of self-aggrandizement. It's this very urge that creates the "perfume connoisseur" in the minds of those who would be such people. The oddballs who swooshed 170 year-old Champagne against their cheeks and called it "incredible" are the same. As someone said in a comment:

"It allows them to set themselves apart as special - the cognoscenti. If you have to acquire an artificial taste, for anything, what is the point? The point is that you can say that you, unlike most of us, can drink the most foul of anything, and smile as though you like it."

Well put. Substitute the word "smell" in place of "drink," and this defines the "vintages are all fine" mentality nicely.

Joint Pour Homme (Roccobarocco)

I happened across Roccobarocco's Joint recently, and owning it has clarified a few things for me. It's a favorite of someone I know, and it is something held up as a bit of a masterpiece in the world of vintage masculines. To read about it, one would think that Joint defines the superiority of vintage perfumes over reformulations and recent releases, particularly niche releases. I expected it to be very heavy and deep for the duration of its presumably long lifespan on my skin, but I also expected its strength to be a product of unbalanced accords, due to its age. I was slightly wrong.

It begins with a gorgeous array of accords, but it's obvious from the very first moment that it's a clone of Zino by Davidoff. The resemblance is undeniable and the treatment of lavender in both fragrances is the same. The late eighties and early nineties saw the rise of the "dusky" lavender note in masculine perfumes, a sort of super-soapy, slightly toasted herbal blend that smells incredibly burly and aromatic. It is present in Zino, Joint, and Vermeil for Men. It's also present in Kouros (perhaps one of the first to showcase it) and Lapidus Pour Homme. This type of lavender is always highly blended with other rich aromatics, usually patchouli, rosewood, tobacco, artemisia, orris, sandalwood, and a variety of animalic musks. Joint possesses all of these notes, in conjunction with the dusky, burly lavender. For an even clearer idea of how this lavender smells in isolation from this kind of tightly aromatic blend, I recommend trying vintage Bleu Marine by Pierre Cardin. Time has wasted most of the aromatics in that one, likely because the materials used for its construction were cheaper naturals, but the sole remaining "power note" in Bleu's pyramid is lavender.

Like Zino, Joint quickly becomes dark and dry, its excellent note separation yielding various textures of Sicilian lemon, civet, honey, sage, castoreum (more vanillic than animalic), tobacco, rosewood, coumarin, vetiver, orris, sandalwood, labdanum, rose, coriander, cardamom, caraway, frankincense, opoponax, carnation, and amber. Although I can detect each of these elements in the mix, the notes that really stand out and dominate the body of the scent are lavender, honey, tobacco, rosewood, sandalwood, labdanum, and amber. The lemon, lavender, coumarin, and civet give the extended intro a decidedly "fougeriental" feel, a definite hybridization of fern and spicy amber facets. Eventually, after thirty minutes, the woods become smoother and more pronounced, and the whole thing begins to smell like a cross between Zino and Vermeil for Men. I'm impressed by the beauty of these accords, and by their relatively natural effect, as nothing smells particularly chemical or crass, although there is an obviously synthetic edge to the woods. Despite that, it's a very nice scent.

My enlightenment occurs at the forty-five minute mark, when something interesting occurs: Joint suddenly loses focus and balance. It's as if someone suddenly deflated its big red balloon. The woods begin to fuzz out, rather severely, and the tobacco slips away. The vanillic castoreum, which smells like the processed food flavoring in high concentration, suddenly defines the amber, and a semisweet blush of nondescript earthiness is washed out by a honey-like white musk. At this point it's clear that two things have influenced past assessments of Joint. One, the fragrance is shockingly top heavy, to the point where it's almost as if the top notes are the fragrance in full, extended in concentration alone. Indeed, that initial spray is so intense and loud and full of complementary materials that one could only expect it to last well into the heart phase, but that heart barely exists. Once the juice has mixed with natural skin oils, its dissipation occurs, and the power goes out.

The second issue is that time has effected the balance of the fragrance. Joint has been out of production for twenty years, and my bottle is likely that old, if not older. For anyone to say that this fragrance is a good example of how rich and natural and powerful vintage designer masculines can be negates the prime effect of degradation that has obviously occurred here. Does my bottle of Joint smell very good? Yes. As such, one could argue that it has not "turned" or "gone bad," but there's a better definition of those terms - the fragrance is no longer balanced, and no longer smells exactly as it should. In this case, the drydown was effected instead of the top notes, which is certainly atypical of vintage degradation, but is still degradation nonetheless. Also there's the question of whether this weakened, somewhat off balance drydown and sub-par longevity can be excused by the brilliance of the first few minutes. Although it's clear that Joint is a lovely composition, it's also clear that it's derivative, and doesn't add much to the genre of burly tobacco-themed scents from its period. Zino is better, in my opinion, and can still be had for much less money. Vermeil is also better, and also much cheaper, and it's arguably the best of the three. I find it hard to believe anyone would choose Joint over other fragrances.

Based on my experience with Joint, I continue to believe that some (not all) lovers of vintage perfumes live in a deeply-rooted and psychologically complex state of denial about the true quality and value of vintage fragrances. I can't help but wonder if their noses are simply not attuned to detecting when notes have gone stale, or when whole accords have flattened and weakened and ruined structural balance and longevity. These changes are often subtle and can perhaps be intentionally overlooked in favor of enjoying whatever remains, but as with other vintages, such deterioration is clearly present in this fragrance. It's still wearable, and still performs fairly well considering its age, but it definitely doesn't smell the way it did fifteen years ago.

Joint can be had in 1 oz and 1.7 oz sizes on Ebay for under $40 (the 1 oz is currently $29.99), and that's exactly what it's worth in my opinion. I paid $33 for my 1.7 oz bottle, which I bought at a brick and mortar shop in CT. If it weren't for the technically advanced skillfulness of its blend and the high quality of its materials, I'd find fault with anyone claiming it's worth owning at all. But given that its structure is, at least for most of an hour, quite good and memorable, I'd say that fans of this sort of darkly animalic gentlemen's club scent should consider $35 for Joint money well spent.