Bois de Gayac
Antonio Visconti

Notes from Antonio Visconti's website;
Top: Mandarin, orange fruit, pink pepper, nutmeg
Heart: cistus absolute, saffron, sandalwood Mysore
Base: guaiacwood, agarwood, black pepper, frankincense, myrrh

After a pasted on candied orange and myrrh opening a la Imperial Opoponax, Bois de Gayac turned claggy and a bit impenetrable on me. Wet leather, earth tones, perhaps a touch of something ripe like davana – that's the wearing experience. Where did all those glorious components of the note breakdown go? The radiant woods are in there, but buried by a homogenizing density. Alas, density is not the same thing as complexity, and Bois de Gayac could have benefitted enormously from a bit more ambition and edge.
When the final destination of dry, sweet-and-salty wood tones comes into sight, things improve markedly, but this is still a middling offering with fairly timid projection.