The Story
Why it exists.
The beginning
Kelly Jones launched her Notes of Wine collection with a radical premise: that a grape varietal could be a perfume brief. No. 4 Notes of Merlot was part of that first chapter, a perfume oil inspired not by the grape itself but by the scene around a bottle of merlot, the kitchen-table conversations, the city stories traded over poured glasses. Jones approached wine the way most perfumers approach florals or ambers, treating each varietal as a landscape of aromatic possibilities to be translated into wearable form. Her notes for this particular composition reveal an obsessive attention to the fruit-forward side of red wine, the layers that arrive before any tannic or oaky impression takes hold.
What makes this composition unusual is its refusal to rely on the obvious translations. Rather than reaching for oak, vanilla, or any of the conventional shortcuts that perfume compositions tend to grab when depicting wine, Kelly Jones stayed focused on what hits the palate first. Red currant and rhubarb anchor the opening, the bright, sour fruit that registers before any deeper impression forms. Fig brings the dark, jammy density that ripe merlot carries, while the violet adds a dusty floral lift that some palates associate with older vintages.
The evolution
The opening arrives sharp and unmistakable, red currant cracking open like a bitten skin, rhubarb threading through with its green-tart bite. There's a candied quality almost immediately, but it reads as fruit candy rather than sugar, the natural sweetness of cooked-down berries. As the hours pass, the fig asserts itself, darker and fleshier, pulling the composition into a denser register without ever becoming heavy. The heart softens into something plush and slightly powdery as the candied violet settles, giving the fragrance a dusky purple haze that lingers close to skin. The rhubarb provides a quiet vegetal anchor that holds underneath the fig's jam-like warmth, preventing the whole thing from tipping into pure sweetness.
Cultural impact
No. 4 Notes of Merlot draws attention from collectors interested in conceptual perfumery, the kind of brief that takes a single grape varietal as its creative starting point. It operates within a small but distinct category of wine-inspired niche fragrance, distinguished by its commitment to the fruit-forward side of red wine rather than its oak-and-spirits associations. Discussions of the composition tend to center on how convincingly the fruit notes translate, particularly the interplay between the bright currant and rhubarb at the opening and the denser fig as the composition develops.
