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.

Wonderful substitute for Diorella if you can't find an old bottle. Nicolai has done a nice job replicating the refreshing wet sparkle of the old Diorella, and while the Nicolai is a bit different, it's not a shocking change. If anything, even more unisex than the older perfume.

An airy, unisex, weekend iteration of Dior Eau Sauvage EDT. Grapefruit, aromatics, jasmine, pine, and resins. I'm not getting much, if any, tobacco to warrant discussion. Conveys a relaxed elegance, perfect for warm weather.

A mouthwatering, green, juicy, uplifting scent for someone living their best life! Posh, but at one with nature. A complex blend, where the tarragon especially makes it highly original. C'est la vie de château!

This was masterpiece chypre. Have been looking for a sustitute for this beauty but I just cant find it. Nothing is not even close on the market. Still have few milliliters and I will cherish it dearly.

Love at first sniff. Does such a beautiful job conjuring up an olfactory image of a field of wildflowers and dried sweetgrass on a hot summer day. I'll always have a bottle.

Wonderful mix of mostly fruits and hay. Absolutely complex white dessert wine vibes. The note listing do not capture the fruitiness of this masterpiece.

Another masterpice from madame Nicolai. Her creations are equisit and classy, Sophisticated and they radiates in different layers. A must have.

Very well built fragrance.... Despite the very green notes advertised, it starts off green fruity/aquatic (a light ozonic/water like note) but then this sweet start turn into a more "countryside" like fragrance... fresh, grassy, mossy, hay drying in the sun, with some understated citrus notes. Easy to wear, uplifting, refreshing. The rest is woods and some resins, to give some depth. I find that all the PdN I have tried so far have a common group of notes at the beginning, like a signature. Vie de Chateau is more suitable for summer. But in any case it is a very enjoyable fragrance.

Original work by Patricia de Nicolaï where the effect of citrus when combined with herbs, jasmine, hay and snuff result similar to a syrupy sauce citrus aroma. According pineth appear the woods and stresses that mixture of snuff somewhat sweet hay without reaching the gourmand and never miss that citrus scent mentioned at the beginning. I do not know why, but this scent liken it to orange. Modern cut, clear, persistent and with a semi-linear evolution concept, lasts and with a very good wake essences first. Rating: 6

The notes pyramid is missing quite a few items and does not really help to imagine how this would smell. I do not really like chypre or green scents as I find them a bit thin, a bit skinny, but this is more like a rounded, full calorie version. In the top notes, there are citrus and herbs - I really loved the herbs and it is so unusual to smell thyme and tarragon in a scent. Later there is hay and tobacco, which adds the rounded, warm quality that I love so much. (It does not smell similar, but it shares something of the warm stickiness that is in Tom Ford's Tobacco Vanille.) So far, this reads like a wonderful, rich masculine cologne. However, there is a fantastic middle note of jasmine and something - I don't know how it is there - that smells like ripe melon. Added to this is a musky amber note in the dry down, and the traditional feminine elements are also very present. This is how I was hoping Cristalle would smell: the white florals, the melon, the grassiness. But Vie de Chateau is, to me, richer, warmer and more complex. Very unisex, very unusual and enough to keep a suitor salivating all day.

Alas! As usual, nothing but citrus, with a little bit more citrus...tempered by light herbs! I was expecting a lot more from the piney resins, with tobacco and moss...In vain! Anything called Vie de Chateau must have the richness of a Chateau while this eau is as parsimonious as a one bedroom apt! As far as intense is concerned:Intense was the $165 that my girlfriend paid to buy me this... I wonder if ever Patricia gets bored when all her eaus smell the same...She needs to train more w Lorenzo Villoresi, or at the Amouage lab...

I have now tried several of these fragrances by the very talented WOMAN nose whose heritage bespeaks her gifts. Vie de Chateau Intense surprised me as it evolved into a close to the skin refined and lovely scent. It is NOT a run of the mill citrus blast of brightness that fades into nothingness...quite the contrary! There is a comforting warmth and sophistication that persists and as soon as I can, I am buying a beautiful, big bottle!

it starts out green, shrubby, & soily quickly followed by a muted mix of sweet earthy grass, florals, & tobacco with 5-6 sprays i was expecting this to be strong but its more of a hazy performer like an invisible scented veil, i think over all it's more about the blend than individual notes after an hour there is a waxy effect with an occasional scent of hair salon products

This to me is very old school feminine- like some simple version of Arpege put together with ingredients found on a farm. It has a sweetness I associate with dessert wines, pears, and golden grapes turning to raisins. It’s fruity- but, to me, in the “slightly batty” sense of the word; the talkative aunt who has you cornered at the chateau - not the owner.

I was so hoping I’d love this for the hay note, but what I’m getting most intensely is first, Vetiver, then oakmoss and then hay. But the Vetiver is just so intense it’s not an enjoyable fragrance for me.