The Story
Why it exists.
The beginning
Cuir de Cerise landed in 2026 as Bortnikoff's latest move beyond the oud-centric catalogue that defined the house's first chapter. Dmitry Bortnikoff, the Russian perfumer who founded the brand in Bangkok after years of collaboration with Feel-Oud and Areej Le Doré, has always worked with natural absolutes and patient compositions. This one leans into fruit and leather rather than resin, a quiet departure that still feels unmistakably his. The name tells you what to expect: cherry meets cuir, sour fruit against the grain of treated hide. Released into a brand portfolio that already includes Mysterious Oud and Tabac Dore, it sits as the extroverted cousin, louder in its opening, softer in its landing.
The unusual move here is olive in the heart, a note rarely given a seat at the table outside Mediterranean perfumery. It brings a green, almost savory bitterness that keeps the sour cherry from tipping into confection. Osmanthus adds a leathery apricot facet that bridges fruit and hide, so the transition between the two feels like one continuous material rather than two ideas colliding. The saffron up top does what saffron does best: warmth without sweetness, a metallic glint that makes everything underneath look more expensive.
The evolution
The first ten minutes are the loudest you'll hear it. Sour cherry and saffron hit bright, almost tart, with a briny edge that some will read as olive already lurking. It announces itself at moderate sillage, close enough to be intimate but present enough that someone across a table will notice. By the thirty-minute mark the leather starts to surface, warm and slightly suede-like rather than aggressive. The osmanthus threads through with its apricot-skin character, softening the fruit into something rounder. Around the two-hour mark the composition shifts: the cherry recedes, the olive's bitterness fades, and cypriol takes over with its earthy, smoky depth. Oud sits underneath, not loud, but giving the base a resinous anchor that keeps everything from floating away. The drydown is where this earns its keep, a quiet leather-oud-cypriol blend that stays on skin for 5-7 hours and on fabric well into the next day, smelling like a jacket left near a fireplace.
Cultural impact
Within Bortnikoff's catalogue, Cuir de Cerise marks a noticeable shift away from the house's oud-heavy identity toward something fruitier and more immediately wearable. Collectors who came for Mysterious Oud or Oud Maximus might approach this with curiosity rather than expectation, and that tension is part of the appeal. The cherry-leather-olive combination recalls few direct peers in the niche space, landing closer to the experimental edge of the indie scene than to traditional Middle Eastern perfumery, even with oud anchoring the base.
