Bergamot

Almost every perfume you have ever loved begins with a citrus, and more often than not that citrus is bergamot. It is the first light in a composition, the moment the door opens before the room reveals itself. I use it the way a filmmaker uses the first frame: to set the temperature of everything that follows.

What bergamot is

Bergamot is a small bitter citrus, Citrus bergamia, grown for its peel rather than its juice. The fruit is picked green to yellow in winter and the oil is cold expressed from the rind, never cooked. The oil I work with is treated to remove bergapten, the compound that makes untreated bergamot react to sunlight on skin, so it can be worn generously and without worry.

Where our bergamot comes from

Our bergamot comes from Condofuri, a coastal commune in the province of Reggio Calabria at the very toe of Italy. This narrow strip between the Aspromonte mountains and the Ionian Sea is the only place on earth where bergamot is grown at scale, and it has been for centuries. The sea keeps the winters mild, the mountains catch the rain, and the alluvial soil drains fast. The fruit that grows here carries an unusually high share of linalyl acetate and linalool, the molecules that give bergamot its soft, almost floral sweetness under the sharpness. Bergamot grown elsewhere tends to be thinner and more purely sour. The Calabrian oil has body.

How bergamot smells

Fresh, fruity sweet citrus with a slightly balsamic undertone. Imagine the zest of a lemon crossed with the roundness of a ripe orange, then a faint note of Earl Grey tea and something green and cool at the edge. It lifts quickly off the skin and hands the composition over to the heart within the first minutes, which is precisely its job.

Bergamot in our chapters

• IIINéroli de NuitThe Blossom · in the opening

  In Néroli de Nuit it opens the chapter beside lemon and mandarin, a bright prelude to a night of blossoms.

• IVRosée BlancheThe Climbing Rose · in the opening

  In Rosée Blanche it is the first cold drop of morning before the rose and the grapefruit arrive.

• VChérie OudThe Trunk · in the opening

  In Chérie Oud it sharpens the opening so the vanilla and oud beneath feel warmer by contrast.

• VIIIRoyale OudThe Taproot · in the opening

  In Royale Oud it gives the taproot chapter its one moment of pure daylight before the resins take over.

A note from the atelier

I never treat bergamot as decoration. When the Calabrian oil is right, the whole composition breathes more easily, and when it is wrong you feel it as a faint tinny edge in the first minute. The difference is the place.

Questions about bergamot