Vermouth
Note Profile
About
Vermouth is an aromatised fortified wine. At least 75% of it is wine, and it must be flavoured with a herb from the Artemisia genus, which is what separates it from every other aromatised wine. The smell is a botanical infusion sitting on an oxidative grape base, bitter through the middle, and it is the only note in this group that is neither a spirit nor a mixed drink.
Scent Profile
Vermouth smells herbal throughout, a bundle of wormwood, bay and chamomile. A warm cinnamon-clove spice runs alongside it, and a fruity, grape-like sweetness sits underneath, almost cola-like. A boozy, oxidised wine body carries all of it, with a sour edge and raw green wormwood bitterness at the fringes. Citrus from bergamot and bitter orange lifts the top, a floral honeysuckle note shows faintly, and a dried tobacco-leaf note appears in the darker style.
ScentWheel
Read off the wheel, not a label applied to the note.
ScentArt
Origin
A white wine base of 14.5% to 22% alcohol, fortified and infused with a botanical charge. Noilly Prat Original Dry uses twenty botanicals including chamomile, elderflower, coriander and bitter orange on a dry, high-acid Picpoul and Clairette wine from the Languedoc. Martini Rosso uses wormwood, quassia, summer savory and dittany, is sweetened to 140-150 g of sugar per litre and is coloured deep red with caramel.
Usage in Perfumery
A heart note for bitter-aromatic and aperitif accords. It gives a composition a herbal, wine-soaked dryness that a straight herb oil cannot, because the herbs arrive already oxidised and sweetened. It sits well under citrus tops and over spice and tobacco. Treat it as a blend, not as a single material, and decide which style you mean before dosing it.
Similar Notes
Perfumes featuring Vermouth
A selection of reviewed perfumes where Vermouth appears prominently.
No perfumes featuring this note have been reviewed yet. Check back soon.