Rubini Nuvolari at Pitti Fragranze 2021 photo Ermano©
A thousand hearts are beating like caged bird wings. In the stands, fans transfix on the starting line, binoculars at the ready. The air bubbles and breaks with anticipation and the noise of engines revving. A potent masculine smell of octane fuel couples with vetiver cologne as the crowd clutches their flasks and leans forward like a single body. The cars growl and snap and spit. There’s an audible intake of breath as the track marshal raises his arm and the green flag slices the air like a guillotine blade. As the cars barrel down the track, a red Alfa Romeo rages ahead, streaking like a bloody comet around the course. The man behind the wheel drives like one possessed, his fire-red car a demonic blur. Tazio Nuvolari, “Il Mantovano Volante,” sets the track afire as if he were the devil himself.
Tazio Nuvolari, image via Wikipedia
With his leonine elegance and a fearlessness sometimes bordering on insanity, Tazio Nuvolari was a modern-day pirate, an elegant madman, the stuff of legends. Rubini founder and creative director, Andrea Bissoli Rubini, working again with Argeville perfumer Cristiano Canali, pays homage to Italy’s greatest auto racer with Nuvolari, a refined, confident vetiver and oud fragrance that Rubini describes as “a hymn to the madness of a racer.” With its smooth elegance and dash of trademark Rubini eccentricity, Nuvolari perfectly captures the Flying Mantuan’s James Bond-like aura and the tension and excitement of the race. II also represents some of Canali’s most refined work to date.
Cristiano Canali and Andrea Bissoli Rubini, photo courtesy of Cristiano Canali
The start of Rubini Nuvolari is restrained exuberance: vetiver, motor oil and black pepper tear out of the bottle at 100 miles an hour and accelerate forward, each straining to overtake the other. Canali creates an intriguing tension between overlapping fast-developing notes such as the pepper and petrol accord and slower, denser aromas like oud and vetiver that parallel the race. The spicy black pungency of the pepper pings off the vetiver repeatedly in the beginning, the vetiver’s green, vegetal aspect in the fore, accentuated by bright drops of lemon. But the brashness of the opening notes fall back as the smoky, earthier aromas of the root start to emerge. As the vetiver darkens and slows, Nuvolari eases its foot on the gas pedal, as if to say there’s plenty of time to win this race.
Nuvolari race image courtesy of Rubini
Nuvolari heads towards the perfume’s oud heart, taking a few clever detours with chilly dots of mint that feel like a speed breeze and the hard, mineral bounce of asphalt. I smell a bit of fuel swishing around in the tank and the tang of lemon drifts in and out along with some barely detectable rose and a noticeable whiff of booze. But then the fragrance skids into what could be a wipeout for me: a slick of ambroxan. I’ll be honest: ambroxan is probably my least favourite aroma chemical and its presence in a perfume always has the very real possibility of completely derailing whatever I am smelling. But – huge sigh of relief – Canali has so deftly woven the ambroxan into Nuvolari’s complimentary car smells that after a few moments, it does not register as itself but rather as part of the track environs. It soon has the good sense to retreat as the mineral-petrol scents fly past it and the fragrance picks up speed again.
The heart of Rubini Nuvolari is the woody, thick scent of Laos oud. The resin’s fruity, smoky, animalic and cedary notes are all there, each quietly glinting at different times like a slowly revolving jeweler’s display. It gives the perfume not only its burnished sophistication but slows its tempo once and for all. There’s no dramatic finish here to represent Nuvolari crossing the finish line first – it’s a given. Instead, the perfume takes us to the winner’s circle, where our hero is chatting to the press while grinning through a Havana cigar, celebratory flask in hand. Nuvolari at this late stage is smoky, flinty, woody and mellow, and warm as a congratulatory handshake, and classically elegant. Canali and Rubini have created a finely crafted Italian cologne bound to become as classic as a vintage Maserati.
Notes: Italian lemon, black pepper Madagascar, fuel accord, Yakima mint, metallic neroli, Bulgarian rose, motor racing accord, vetiver Haiti MD, oud Laos, ambroxan, asphalt accord.
Disclaimer: sample of Rubini Nuvolari extrait kindly provided by Rubini. My opinions, as always are my own.
Lauryn Beer, Senior Editor
Bottle of Nuvolari extrait, image courtesy of Rubini
Thanks to the generosity of Andrea Rubini, we have a bottle (you will need to wait until November 15th ) or 10 x 1.5 ml samples of Rubini Nuvolari for one registered reader in the USA, or EU. To be eligible, please leave a comment saying what strikes you about Rubini Nuvolari based on Lauryn’s review, where you live and if you want to wait for the bottle or if you want the samples and whether you have tried any of the fragrances from this house. Draw closes 10/23/2021.
Note: Rubini Nuvolari made Best Show at Pitti Fragranze. You can read Ermano’s report here
Michelyn awarded Rubini Fundamental one of the Best Fragrances of 2015 here
Please read Lauryn’s review of Rubini Tambour Sacre here
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