Medlar
Note Profile
About
Medlar is the bletted fruit of Mespilus germanica. Left to soften past ripeness, the flesh reduces to the texture and smell of apple sauce, cidery and wine-like rather than fresh and bright.
Scent Profile
Fruity leads and it is cooked fruit, not picked fruit: apple sauce, dried apple and quince, the comparison both sources reach for on their own. A boozy cidery, wine-like fermentation runs under it, which is what bletting does to the flesh. Sweet_vanillic follows, because vanillin is named specifically as an aroma quality parameter of the ripe fruit. Sour organic acids stop it going jammy. Green sits behind it, the C-6 aldehyde and alcohol fraction that dominates the unripe fruit and never fully leaves. Smaller parts: an aldehydic snap, a nutty benzaldehyde trace, a light honeyed sweetness, a faint floral edge from the monoterpenes and a trace of earthy weight.
ScentWheel
Read off the wheel, not a label applied to the note.
Origin
Mespilus germanica, a small tree of the Rosaceae grown in Europe and western Asia since Roman times. The fruit is inedible hard off the tree and is bletted, held after picking until the flesh browns and softens. Food-chemistry work on the volatiles finds aldehydes, alcohols, esters, acids and terpenes, with C-6 aldehydes and alcohols dominant by quantity, and names vanillin as an aroma quality marker.
Usage in Perfumery
A soft, cooked-fruit note. It sits where a perfumer wants orchard fruit without the sharpness of fresh apple or pear, and it brings a fermented edge that plain fruit notes do not have.
Similar Notes
Perfumes featuring Medlar
A selection of reviewed perfumes where Medlar appears prominently.
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