Perfume Thursday: 1270 by Frapin

1270 is the year the Frapin family founded their wine company in the Cognac region of France.

In 2010, with 740 years of experience in wine making under their belt, they decided to venture into the world of perfume with a fragrance named after their founding year.  

Heavily influenced by their wine-making background, this is a fascinating fragrance, filled with fruity, sweet and spicy notes.  Intriguingly, our initial impression wasn't of the top notes of Orange and Lime but more a sweet, rich, heavy smell reminiscent of deliciously sweet dessert wines, Pedro Ximenez Sherry, Christmas puddings and raisins. We could detect Plum, Dried Fruits, Honey, Spices and deep, dark Vanilla with a hint of Guaic Wood, and felt it was evocative of winter evenings by the fire, it felt cosy and familiar.  Shame we were testing it on a sweltering summer's day!  

After half an hour, the overwhelming richness had subsided we felt 1270 had settled.  We were able to pick out Coffee and Tonka aromas more than the heavy initial smells.  Bryony felt the fragrance was more rounded and it reminded Elaine of Thierry Mugler's Angel - sweet but appealing.  It had moved from Christmas pudding to coffee and cake - more sophisticated, we decided.

1270's fragrance lasted around 4 hours and simply became a softer version of the half hour smell. 

As a concept it is fab and it certainly is a gorgeous, appealing smell but, for us, 1270 is too sweet, comforting and familiar ever to be sexy.  It would be a fabulous Christmas room fragrance though!