Cabernet Grape

Note Profile

Botanical

About

The berry of Cabernet Sauvignon and its close Bordeaux relatives. It smells of dark fruit over a hard green edge. The green is not vague: it is 3-isobutyl-2-methoxypyrazine, which smells of fresh green bell pepper and has one of the lowest odour thresholds known.

Scent Profile

Fruity leads. Both the wine source and the Fragrantica summary put black cherry, blackcurrant and blackberry first, and that is the body of the note. Green is the facet that earns this a row rather than an alias: the primary paper measured the highest IBMP of six cultivars in Cabernet Sauvignon berries at 13.05 ng/L, and attributes the strong green pepper odour in Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Merlot to variety specificity. Mineral is graphite, which the wine source names directly and which no other grape note here carries. Dry_woody is the cedar in the same tasting list. Under the named band, warm_spice covers the baking spice, a small sulphurous value carries the catty edge that comes with a blackcurrant descriptor, and coffee_cacao holds the dark chocolate term.

ScentWheel

Breadthmedium

EnvelopeHeart · ~7h lasting

Family Fruity, Green & Aromatic

Read off the wheel, not a label applied to the note.

Origin

Vitis vinifera, cultivar Cabernet Sauvignon. The pyrazine tracks the genotype of the berry, not the vine. Muscat Blanc grafted onto Cabernet Sauvignon rootstock produced no measurable IBMP, while Cabernet berries on the same vines produced it regardless of graft.

Usage in Perfumery

A fruity note used where a plain grape or wine accord would be too soft and round. The green pepper and graphite side is what a perfumer is reaching for. No fragrance-industry material for it was found, so this is compounded work.