Wine and perfumery are parallel universes with relatively little crossover. I wonder why. Yes, wine alone is drinkable—but with so much of the enjoyment of wine tied to our perception of its aromas, why aren’t wine lovers attracted, too, to the headier cocktails of perfume? Why aren’t fragrance addicts plumbing the subtler depths of wine to perfume their inner selves?
I drove out to Longwood Gardens, a half-hour outside Philadelphia, to its first exhibition, “Making Scents,” (www.longwoodgardens.org) on the aromas of perfumery. I wanted to find new material for my aroma library—aromas used in perfumery that might also exist in wine—and try to see whether these two worlds of aroma were really the same.
The exhibition extends through three long greenhouses of
Longwood’s giant glass conservatory, plus a
final room containing a small
interactive exhibition that distills the process of perfume making. Really, though, the fragrance theme pervades the entire conservatory and grounds, with aroma pumps accompanied by snippets of perfume history scattered throughout the conservatory, and signs around the grounds proclaiming "I Am Fragrant," inviting the visitor to gently jostle the leaves and take a whiff. The indefatigable aroma hound will find himself sniffing just about everything (watch those carnivorous species) and discovering fragrant orchids, gingers, and other secret sources of scent.
Don’t expect much hard science, but both adults and children will enjoy the exhibit, especially its interactive nature. Adults may, by the end, discover their own perfume preferences—Oriental? Chypre? Fern?—by smelling a dozen or so actual perfumes tied to plant aromas. In the final room, there is an opportunity to smell nine different perfume ingredients such as bergamot, lemon, and rose, and combine them into a personal perfume sample, dispensed on a (rather faint) scratch-and-sniff slip. School-age children will enjoy reading a clue and operating the aroma pumps to guess the aromas they dispense. (And if that doesn’t hold their attention, there is a children’s garden in the conservatory with mesmerizing water elements.)
I came away with a collection of aromas I am unlikely to
find in wine (jasmine) and quite a few that I might (various herbs, and just
possibly, ylang-ylang). I also learned the basics of perfume making, a process
that involves selecting top notes, middl notes, and base notes—are you
thinking attack, midpalate, and finish? There are also lectures and special
programs on scent scheduled through November, when the show closes, and the
1906 restaurant offers an interesting aroma-themed tasting menu (the wine list
would have been another good opportunity to present aroma, guys!). For the
aroma collector, the experience is recommended.
Top: Icons identify fragrant plants in the gardens.
Above: Pump the lever on the side and smell three different plant-based perfumes.
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