Landscape of Pariutín (Volcanic Eruption) by Ruffino Tamayo, 1947 ©Sotheby’s

Once upon a time in what we now call Catalonia men and women hunted woolly mammoths and painted murals in their cave dwellings. These Stone Age ancestors were the last humans to see a volcano erupt on the Iberian peninsula with all its fierce destruction, smoke, fire, and molten lava. They felt the heat, inhaled the fumes, heard the rumbling, and tasted the ash on their tongues. The recollection of the live volcanoes of Catalonia are a seed in the collective memory of the region’s people. Eleven thousand years after the last eruption the seed sprouted in the mind of Sara Carner and the idea for a new fragrance was born, Carner Barcelona Volcano, the latest in the house’s Black Collection.

Dancers of Cogul, Neolithic paintings found in Catalonia, reproduced by Abbé Breuil, ca. 1910 ©Enric Fontvila

About fifty miles north of Barcelona is the Garrotxa Volcanic Zone Nature Park. Spread over sixty square miles there are forty ancient volcanoes. Visitors can hike (or better yet take a hot air balloon ride) over the park to see the lava flows solidified into basalt, isolated romanesque churches built in the center of craters, numerous waterfalls, and cliff-clinging medieval towns. The fury of the volcanoes has cooled and died, but their imprint is forever carved into the landscape. It wouldn’t be difficult for those visitors to close their eyes and cast their minds back into that collective memory to make the fire mountains come alive again. Carner Barcelona Volcano can bring you there, too.

Views of the Garrotxa Volcanic Zone, courtesy Turisme Garrotxa

 

The founder of Carner Barcelona, Sara Carner, imagined the Black Collection as a celebration of the different cultures that shaped the Mediterranean soul. In 2016 perfumer Rodrigo Flores-Roux created the first three fragrances in this line: Sandor 70s, Black Calamus, and Rose & Dragon. In 2018 another Givaudan perfumer, Jordi Fernández, took up the challenge to create the fourth perfume in the line, Volcano. The family resemblance in the Black Collection is evident. All four share the similar features of nose-tickling spiciness, deep rose, earthy patchouli and balsamic frankincense, yet they are as different as my own four brothers. For example Volcano lacks the leather accords the other three have. Interestingly Carner Barcelona has an area of their website, “Perfume Fusion”, in which they suggest layering ideas for their fragrances. Volcano’s suggested partner is Sonia Constant’s 2011 leather powerhouse for Carner Barcelona, Cuirs.

The Volcano on a Starry Night by Dr. Atl, 1950 ©Museo Nacional del Arte, Mexico

In creating Carner Barcelona Volcano perfumer Jordi Fernández took the skeleton of the house’s Black Collection and set it on fire. The immediate opening is the sweet, honeyed rose, full-bodied and ready to burst. Very quickly the flames lap up as the spices kick in, like turning up the dial on a gas-fueled fireplace. The comparison is apt because there is a not-unpleasing terpenic aroma at this stage. The embers and ash of a wood fire have not come to the forefront yet. “Drying down” is literal in the progression of this perfume. As it wears Carner Barcelona Volcano begins to release its smoky frankincense blended with earthy vetiver and patchouli. The dry stage is very dry; it is sweet without being juicy. The final stages of the perfume mellow into a woody, balsamic skin scent. Jordi Fernández has recreated the life cycle of a volcano in the life of one perfume: lush flora, exploding fire, dry barren landscape, reforestation.

Jordi Fernandez at the Academia del Perfume in Madrid, courtesy Givaudan

Earlier this year the Academia del Perfume Fundación in Spain honored Sr. Fernández the “Patchouli Chair” among their exclusive group of “Académicos del Numero” along side perfumers such as Carlos Benaim, Olivier Cresp, Rodrigo Flores-Roux, and Albero Morillas. His work on three very different niche fragrances, Ex Nihilo Brompton Immortals, Carner Barcelona Latin Lover and Volcano undoubtedly helped him achieve this prestigious award. I am excited to experience the great perfumes he will create in the future.

Notes: Bulgarian rose, Indonesian nutmeg, Laotian red ginger, Indonesian patchouli, Indian cypriol (a.k.a. nagarmotha), Somalian frankincense; Haitian vetiver, Spanish labdanum, Spanish cistus, Oud accord.

Disclaimer: Europerfumes generously supplied me with a tester bottle for review; my opinions are my own.

– Marianne Butler, Senior Contributor

Carner Barcelona Volcano, courtesy Carner

Thanks to the generosity of Europerfumes the USA distributor we have a 50m testerl bottle of Carner Barcelona Volcano for one registered reader in the USA.  To be eligible, please leave a comment saying what strikes you about Carner Barcelona Volcano based on Marianne’s review and if you have a favorite Carner Barcelona Perfume. Draw closes 4/15/2019.

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