Gocce di Napoleon
Morris Profumi (1979)

This fragrance was my beloved grandmother's favorite scent and I haven't been smelling it for long time, since those days in which she departed leaving on me a sweet, sweet memory of her. All I still remember is that Gocce di Napoleon was a classically constructed spicy-aldehydic chypre with a certain level of piquant earthiness, lot of citrus, bergamot-lavender, aldehydes, a kind of stuffy fruity-floral accord in composition and with a very woodsy, incensey- mossy and kind of misty/austere final wake. I remember a sort of prickliness and smokiness in the aroma which over all was very green-boise, deeply floral, incensey and somewhat vintage chypre in vibe. An olfactory piece of my sweet past and for this reason I'm tributing at it a satisfied thumbs up.

GOCCE DI NAPOLEON does not, as its name might suggest, smell like pure, uncut testosterone but is instead a unique floriental perfume with initially dominant notes of hyacinth and rhubarb–or reasonable facsimiles! There is definitely a strong hyacinth scent and a rhubarbish green yet ever so tangy and crunchy quality in the opening of this composition–whatever may really account for these scents, I like them a lot. GdiN becomes more oriental and dark in the drydown, with diminished florality and the emergence of what appears to be pepper and possibly a touch of leather along with some sort of dark wood.

What I do not find here at all is anything at all very sweet: and no vanilla, in particular. Although the opening seems somewhat feminine to me, the drydown becomes far more masculine, as though Napoleon arrived home after one of his military adventures to usurp Josephine of her domestic authority. The servants suddenly turn all of their attention to the little emperor, ignoring the fair lady of the house. I like both the Josephine and the Napoleon phases of GOCCI DI NAPOLEON and would happily wear this perfume, if I had a bottle.