Maison Spoturno: A game of deduction

​One unsuspecting night, I settled beneath my blankets for a pre-slumber doom-scroll. Happily, I stumbled upon the Instagram story of a fellow fragrance enthusiast as she tore with shivering excitement into freshly delivered decants from Spoturno, a house I was desperate to get my nose on, and whose scents were finally landing at niche perfumeries in the United States.

Maison Spoturno was established in 2024 by Véronique Spoturno, great-granddaughter of François Spoturno di Coty, a man regarded as the founder of modern perfumery. The Coty name was sold to Pfizer in 1963, but the family retained some of his original, physically recorded formulas. Véronique shared one of two “ancient books” of François’ records (one book is in her possession, and one is housed at the Osmothèque) with venerated master perfumer Christopher Sheldrake. Revered for his creative collaborations with Serge Lutens, known for seminal fragrances such as Chergui and Ambre Sultan, Sheldrake has held appointments at Chanel where he is currently the principal in-house perfumer. He was even granted permission to continue his work with Lutens while under the employ of Chanel. In an industry known for radical secrecy, Chanel’s willingness to allow Sheldrake to lend his nose to a competitor, and more recently, Spoturno opening their leather-bound archive for the same perfumer, speaks unequivocally to his unique mastery of olfactive composition and the degree of prestige he has cultivated within the perfume realm.

Sheldrake did not endeavor to reinterpret Coty’s relics for modern sensibilities—rather, he sought to excavate and capture the signature; an essence suffused between lines, remnants of the fingerprints that pivotally patterned perfumery into the artform we indulge in today. It is this resurrected coda, this reconstituted spirit, that he used to direct the five compositions that comprise Spoturno’s debut. 

Considering the heritage allure of François Coty and his descendant, mind-pictures of inscribed perfume formulas—loopy script etched by quill tip into thick parchment—and the alchemic touch of the celebrated Sheldrake, it’s hard to imagine anyone with more than a passing interest in perfumery feeling anything but desperate to sample the Spoturno offerings.

Spoturno’s offerings.

As one such desperate perfume obsessive, I replied to the first story: “God I want to smell these very badly, and have since the Paris boutique opened.” I clicked through more, sensing a plot twist as a series of frustrations unfolded on her end. The samples, decanted and shipped to her by Aedes in New York City, came completely unlabeled. In the excitement of discovery, she had lost track of which vial contained which scent. Next, a quick search divulged the mortifying price of a bottle—and she simply wasn’t resonating with the fragrances. To my great pleasure, the final story revealed an offer to send the samples to whoever wanted them. I leapt! I solicited! I received.

And now, I investigate.

The clues: five unlabeled vials, and five ravaged, labeled envelopes.

Suspect #1

The juice is green, so I am fairly confident I am examining Spoturno 1921 Extrait. Evocative of its namesake year, the Extrait is an intended celebration of La Belle Époque. Opening to bright aldehydic bursts, the fragrance is warm and sparkling, as sunlight pouring through a nugget of amberized champagne. Powdery florals drift beneath the citrus top—lemony, crisp, invigorating. It’s gorgeous, and smells at a distance like the scrumptious ambient air in a Santa Maria Novella boutique, a welcome teleport. It fits my expectations of Spoturno perfectly: a vintage pyramid constructed with modern machinery and grout—letting soft woods support what would have, in 1921, be soldered together with rare animal excretions.

Midway to the dry down, aromatics of sedate flowering lavender replace glistens of lemon and mandarin, arriving a touch camphoric, ultimately wearing smooth by sandalwood and the first suggestions of a creamy, modest vanilla. A helpful note on Maison Spoturno’s site indicates that their ambergris accord consists of notes of algae, calone, cistus, labdanum, and benzoin. The salinity of ambergris in Extrait is evasive, evaporating upon detection to leave me wondering if I’ve been drawing pretend pictures in air. But the cistus, the benzoin… they are tangible, maintaining the warmth first issued by solar citruses in quickening resinous embraces. The florals of this suspect produce a bouquet that floats off the skin, arriving to my nose a murmur of pleasure. I can only imagine what the sillage of an actual spray could be, as I have applied my sample with a dabber.

J’accuse! The juice color is a dead giveaway, but Suspect #1 is a positive DNA match for Spoturno 1921 Extrait.

Suspect #2

The blue tint of this vial is again a welcome signal that the fluid I examine is that of Alphée, a scent Sheldrake and Spoturno envisioned as an aquatic vignette of Corsica, a view of the family’s ancestral homeland from the bow of a seacraft. Alphée was both the name of François Coty’s spiritual father, and the name given to the boat in which Véronique Spoturno’s great-grandmother sailed the Adriatic sea. Cool waters anoint this journey. In the scintilla that dot whitecaps are reflections of gentle citruses. Chilly as a breeze carried off the ocean, gleaming as the sun that shines from above and transforms behemoth ocean waters into weightless transparencies and light, pooling turquoise etched with silver. I smell water, flowers, ozone, and incandescence. Juicy mandarin floods the citrus top–my favorite orange varietal for the tenderness of its components, its slender wedge and tendrilous pulp, its perfectly balanced sweet and tart notes. Neroli and jasmine are dominant, but I hear whispers of rose. Some will find this scent basic, which I am grateful to be at this moment, because my instantaneous love for its white florals has made this composition easy to wear and sniff nonstop. I do not find this suspect suspicious, I know who they are, and I love them.

J’accuse! I am certain this is Alphée, I am certain I want it.

The island of Corsica, France, via Vogue.

Suspect #3

What we have left are various yellow and amber-hued nectars, so there will be no further easy deductions. This juice is a pale yellow. It blooms hesitantly floral—specifically all the parts of a flower: stem, greenery and leaf, the pollenous bulb at its center, trapped sap, captured dew. A mild salinity is present, as if ferreted from the soil to fertilize the flowers’ enormous yawn, consuming me as the sun cracks like a yolk on the horizon. If there is no easy tinted tell, there is one fragrant clue that assures: freesia, a less and less common floral since the dawn of the new millenia. I received such a prolific education on its profile during its heyday in the 1990s that its wiles stood no chance. Freesia is a component of one Spoturno fragrance: Barbicaja, named for the family’s ancestral estate and a tribute to the aromas of its grounds. They settled upon the island of Corsica in the 16th century and pioneered orange tree cultivation in the region. Sheldrake’s overdose of citrus blossom harkens to this lore. As a guest on the famed Perfume Room Pod, Véronique shared that she associates herself with the aroma of orange blossom and that, for her, Corsica’s scent is the myrtle flower. I posit an unfamiliar floral I detect may be the signature island myrtle. Known to my nose are the symphonic purple and white petals belonging to a heady hyacinth. Lily of the valley, which I am currently growing from bulbs, imparts exuberant greenery. A dreamy orange blossom completes the trio—perhaps this is Véronique, strolling the grounds of her ancestral home.  

From fresh, sun-risen beginnings, the suspect arches towards a velvety petaled odor of rose, still constantly interrupted by nearby citrus flowers chatting with freesia and clustered comports muguet and hyacinth. I’ve never been to Corsica, but I am currently watching Bridgerton, a show with a floral budget that rivals the GDP of a mid-size nation. What I find in our suspect is a near one-to-one of what I see on the screen, a true embarrassment of bouquet.

J’accuse! Guilty by association of freesia, Barbicaja be known.

Christopher Sheldrake and Véronique Spoturno.

Suspect #4

Our fourth suspect is a warm yellow hue. From the top I am reminded of Suspect #1, AKA Spoturo 1921 Extrait. I am confident that I’m smelling the Eau de Parfum concentration of the same product, L’Eau du Spoturno. The softer, second-born twin is muskier in the top, and the powdery florals come through more assertively. I soon pick up the plush woods and euphoric resins of vanillic benzoin that grace the base. Nothing in the blend overpowers. The citrus is muted, surrendering to smoothness of musked florals who present more animalic than in Extrait. The profile carries an elegance of a mature woman who seeks trouble at nightfall but maintains innocence during drab daytimes. Misdeeds are easily hidden by a well-groomed and tender visage. One may conduct all manner of depravity donning this scent, and walk around smelling like an angel. This potion invites you to smile as you think to yourself, “no one will ever know.”

J’accuse! L’eau du Spoturno 1921, the subdued, if more sensual, twin to Spoturno 1921 Extrait.

Suspect #5

The process of elimination is a detective’s best friend. If my previous deductions were correct, I will at last be smelling L’Ame du Phenix, named after the mythical creature adorning the Spoturno crest, the Phoenix. One can see how easily this figure mascots the Maison, as a symbol of cyclical rebirth. Following immolation, the legendary bird is recomposed from its own ashes. From her prodigious ancestry, Véronique delivers scrolls of sacred formulae to heroic Sheldrake. A quest of collaboration ensues, secrets of the past are unearthed, and Maison Spoturno is born upon a new century. Phenix is the fougère of the collection—I recognize this structure immediately. The first fougère (meaning fern) I ever smelled was incidentally the first fougère ever made, Houbigant’s Fougère Royale of 1882 by perfumer Paul Parquet. I measure every perfume of this genre by its architecture.

In Phenix, a classic barbershop opening of cool aromatics: grapefruit zest, lavender stalk, zingy pepper, a wisp of conifer (juniper branch maybe). Midway, a striking, cheek-biting cold abates for a warming sensation courtesy of a heavy dose of intoxicating woods and gentle spice. Tonka emerges auspiciously. I recognize the dialed-up tonka in modern fougères as an increasingly common substitute for classical features of a hay-forward coumarin and oakmoss in the base. Most recently I have encountered this gesture in the indie house Center of the World Beautiful’s Fougère Pour Homme. Though contemporary noses often categorize this structure as masculine, the first fougères were made for women, so the name Fougère Pour Homme is more of a wink and chuckle than one might initially discern. All to say, I support a robust tonka cloud in a fougère! There’s always been something astringent to the openings—a prickle not unlike the texture found on the underside of a fern frond—and tonka is soft and sweet in a manner that tames these qualities in the nick of time.

J’accuse! I’d know a fougère in the dark. You can’t hide from me L’Ame du Phenix!

With that, I retire my chic houndstooth detective cap, and place it with my mother-of-pearl handled magnifying glass atop a shut file, pipe firm in hand, because this case is closed. We have identified all of the suspects through a painstaking, if pleasurable analysis. I am confident that no crime was committed, so you are all free to go—with the exception of Alphée, who I may flee with for a curtain call dip kiss.

I would like to acknowledge the invaluable assistance in this investigation that came from Emma Vernon’s Perfume Room Pod interviews with Christopher Sheldrake and Véronique Spoturno, which featured tremendously helpful background color on our suspects. And I must thank my benefactor, Jan, who you should follow on the merit of her impeccable taste in perfume and her kindness to this desperate sleuth. Thank you again for bringing this case to my attention. May the whole of our internet perfume community rest easy knowing our streets are once again safe from the menace of unlabeled vials of unknown perfumes.

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