Vie de Chateau Intense

This begins as a bracing, cool and fruity eau de vie, touched with grapefruit and double distilled with stoned fruits, apples, and Williams pears. It feels lucidly watery and bright. This further materializes into green leafiness and Herbs de Provence, marvelously aromatic and savory, with especially marjoram, thyme and lavender weaving in and out. What seems like rosemary to my nose at first can also be perceived as pine needles and resin, mixing with the milky exudate of fresh cut grass, radiant on my skin. The mood is hopeful, sun through clouds, pastoral landscapes abutting manicured lawns, nature's feral resilience juxtaposed with man's attempted dominion of land. I picture reflections on ponds, peripheral new mown hay, wooded perimeters with white-tailed there and the songs of the hermit thrush. The ripe sweetness yields to a drier, more leathery texture, punctuated with warmed grasses and leaves, which may or may not be perceived by the nose as that of tea or tobacco. I can easily humor myself, and it will manifest. It's all delicious, though. Those who enjoy classics like Diorella, Molyneux Quartz, Le Parfum de Therese, will take quite well to Vie de Chateau, in that it shares sensibilities with these beauties.

Oh, I love this. It fills me with a quiet, blissy sense of well-being I associate with late summer and nothing urgent on my agenda. The alchemy begins with a gorgeous, sharp bergamot-infused blast of grapefruit essential oil - one of my favourites - and aromatic herbs. Thyme and tarragon are listed in the notes but what I get is an abstract green with that grapefruit zest which remains throughout. This bracing aromatic scent is followed by the scent of sweet hay and sun-warmed flowers before being infused with a warm resinous haze like a nap in a pool of afternoon sunlight. I get patchouli, tobacco flower and a shot of pine as well but this perfume is symphonic in scope and the individual notes aren't easy to dissect. Fabulous. Distillation: a late summer nap on a bed of floral hay herbal symphony

This is a beautiful and complex scent. Clearly there is a lot going on and it feels like a composite of dozens of flowers, herbs, grasses, and fruits, but other after the stand-out citric burst at the start, it is fairly linear. That isn't a bad thing. The overall sense is of a beautiful, impressionistic bucolic scene like one of Monet's summery hay-filled landscapes. I do smell the "hay" in here, but it is definitely more herbaceous, green, and aromatic than of the sweet, almondy smell of coumarin. The final drydown is a lovely tobacco-hay whisper that fades nicely. The fruit is present throughout, and it veers towards the "overripe" category, but doesn't cross into "rotten food material" territory.

Love love love this. Just got another bottle after not having it for almost ten years. Gucci Guilty Absolute triggered me to return to my favorite vetiver. Like all Nicolai fragrances this is super fruity. There is citrus, sweetness, hay, tobacco. I particularly love the vetiver note here that exhibits that kind of almost toothpaste like freshness. Its like a dense ball of natural aromatic materials. This is the smell of those ancient houses in Paris 1er where the oak staircases have a dangerous slant, pipes have been smoked for centuries, and the floors are washed with some chic cedrat detergent.

I had this fragrance for a few years and keeps on returning to it. Finally, I've decided to write a brief review. It can probably be characterized as a chypre, though the focus is juicy-fruity green with floral elements and also with a bit of hay and vetiver. It perfectly reflects the name of a chateau's life, in particular of its gardens. It is unisex, lasts a long time, and performs excellent in the tropics. One of my favourite fragrances for hot and humid summers.