From Sydney with love

Yay!

Face Hunter is in Sydney... the spacey fashion, the eerie trees, the relaxed, warm weather.




Link: Face Hunter in Sydney

Bois Blond, Parfumerie Generale (limited edition)

I wore Bois Blond for months. Just to get me through. And I believed - because it was so good - I believed the man behind Parfumerie Generale, Pierre Guillaume, had trained as a winemaker.

Well, I was wrong. So why did I believe this? I don't know whether the sales person had told me this...

Or was it the deep woody, sherry, cognac notes I find in their perfumes? Like a bourbon barrel from Kentucky gives a sherry edge to some Scottish whisky.

Not only that, but the perfumes are numbered without names; just like bin vats for wine barrels in the winery.

Ah well.

I wrote to PG about the wine connection and this is my delightful response:

The father of Mr Guillaume he is a wine collector and as a child PG visit a lot a Chateaux in Bordelais, Bourgogne and Midi of France with his father to discover and taste Wine culture... He share the passion of his father but, never "work" himself in wine making.
For information, Mr Guillaume is crazy about woody and oriental note and he's always working on it a lot, trying to discover newones...
He also use a lot of ingredients usually found in food aroma, not only in perfumes.
Bois Blond, it is a fragrance of sunny woods with memories of summer dusks, awaiting the summer monsoons.

This is a limited edition perfume, so get your hands on it (if you can). It's like suddenly finding your own space in the peak-hour crowds. The country in the city. Or a ray of sunshine coming out just the moment you walk outside for your break.

Link: Parfumerie Generale

what to drink during a financial crisis

"My clients' enquiries: "Which wine is best to numb the pain and transport you most effectively from your woes?" What, for example, might the chief executive of the world's fourth-largest investment bank pull up from his cellar, dizzy, reeling and nauseous, knowing that the jobs of 24,000 employees, a proud 158-year commercial history, over $600 billion and the reputation of an entire profession were about to go up in smoke?"

I'd recommend a white wine from the south of France. A Picpoul de Pinet around £4 a bottle.

Or better yet, crunch the credit card and buy a serious Champagne. One that asks questions and gives pause to reflect.



Link: What to drink during a financial crisis

Diana Vreeland in her wonderful Garden in Hell

At the Andy Warhol exhibition at the Hayward Gallery was an interview of Diana Vreeland in her apartment. Extraordinary.

Talking from her sofa in her Fifth Avenue apartment - decorated as a"Garden of Hell" - she talks to an academic about how she was the last person to see the Mona Lisa before it was stolen at the Lourve.

A fascinating conversation with many other superb anecdotes.


Link: Andy Warhol, Other Voices Other Rooms at the Hayward Gallery

Bowmore 16 year old 1990

Let me share with you my tasting notes. Although, as the tasting progressed, they look less like notes and more like boozy heiroglyphics.

Starting out with calm, triple-distilled lowland single malts and irish blends, the day ended with some unrestrained darkness from the island of Islay.

What I wrote for the final Islay whisky, Bowmore 16 year old 1990 (53.4% alc):

"Like being violently dumped by a grey Atlantic wave face first on a rock pool covered with barnacles, waking up a few seconds later to cough out sea-water, seaweed and splinters of charred plank."

After some pause, my tutor decided to accept my note, "Ok, that's pretty much it. Great, isn't it?"

Yes, no doubt. But, by then, the fumes had curled up into my brain. Hanging on the wall, water colour paintings of Islay distilleries by the "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" artist, Ralph Steadman.

When I first arrived and saw them in the tasting room, I found it hard to believe an artist inextricably linked with Hunter S. Thompson could paint a landscape so lunar quiet.

But after a day of tasting Scotch, the hushed washed-out colours now made a lot of sense... as in the bottle, the expression of the land.



Link: Ralph Steadman's trip to Scottish distilleries blog

Brian Eno: the key to a long life

"I believe singing is the key to a long life, a good figure, a stable temperament, greater intelligence, new friends, increased self-confidence, heightened sexual attractiveness and a sense of humour. There! That got your attention."


– Brian Eno

Link: Ode Magazine, Freestyling

Castello di Ama: chianti, architecture and art

Nestled in the commune of Gaiole in Chianti, in the province of Siena, lies one of the most beautiful modern wineries I have ever seen.

The premier Chianti Classico estate, made of mirror, is a modern building, not beautiful in itself. What makes it beautiful is the idea it reflects along with the non-stop undulating olive-clad hills and vineyards.

The building becomes a complete merging of the Chianti landscape into the winery.

Apart from the inspired architecture, it is also home to an excellent collection of contemporary art. Owners Marco Pallanti and Lorenza Sebasti showcase their wines amongst music and art works.

"An important work of art will live on through time and will always have something to relate to the viewer, just as a good bottle of wine will age with style, harmony and balance, and still communicate its unique history..." (from Decanter Magazine).

Metaphorically, Chianti di Ami's architecture is the greatest expression of terroir I have ever seen: where the land reflects itself through the winery, and finally, expressing itself in the glass.

Bellissimo.

Link: Castello di Ama

crisp

Link: All things Quentin Crisp

Marchesa Luisa Casati

"With her pet cheetah on a diamond-studded leash, her Lalique flask of Absinthe and tendency to go out in little else than a fur coat, it’s not surprising the Italian aristocrat caused a sensation from Paris to Hollywood during the 1920s..." from La Vie on Rose blog

All the stock market schadenfraude makes me wonder: maybe we have just been through the equivalent of the decadent 1920s? Maybe it's history repeating. And then, there's the unrepeatable and unique... the Marchesa Luisa Casati.

After a life of parties at her home Palazzo Venier dei Leoni, on Grand Canal in Venice, after patronising the major artists of the time, she had amassed a personal debt of $25 million. To satisfy her creditors, all her possessions were auctioned. In the bid room, Coco Chanel.

The Marchesa fled to London, where she lived in comparative poverty."She was rumoured to be seen rummaging in bins searching for feathers to decorate her hair."

She died in London in 1957, buried amongst the illustrious dead at Brompton Cemetery. The epigraph on her tombstone is from Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra: "Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety."

"She was buried wearing not only her black and leopardskin finery but a pair of false eyelashes."

Link: quotes from Wiki article, Marchesa Luisa Casati