Meo Fusciuni

'may-oh foo-'shoo-nee

At Esxence, someone whose judgment I trust said, “Go to Meo Fusciuni and ask to smell his violets,” so I went. MF’s stand was wide, decked out in dark grey, and decidedly Gothic. I caught his attention and asked about the violets. Fusciuni walked up to me, lowered his eyes to look at my name tag, looked up at me with a mysteriously radiant expression, said nothing, silently took both my hands in his while keeping his intense gaze fixed on mine, pulled me into his stand and sat me down at a table, all this without uttering a word. The effect was pure “we were expecting you …” as in a Gustav Meyrink novel.

At that point I would have been only mildly surprised if all of Esxence had suddenly vanished and left us sitting at a table outside a shop in Samarkand at sunset, with camels snorting around us and a young help laying down a tray of hot tea in small glasses. It turned out that much of the drama was due to Fusciuni losing his voice to a throat infection. He eventually spoke in a hoarse whisper, while continuing to look every inch the Silk Road merchant he must surely have been in a previous life.

I later found out that Meo Fusciuni is the nome d’arte of Giuseppe Imprezzabile, a chemist by training and an ethnobotanist by trade, who started making perfumes in 2013 with Nota di Viaggio 1 (Travel Note 1), about which more soon. Meo is short for Bartolomeo, his grandfather’s first name, and Fusciuni apparently means fountain in a Sicilian dialect. I did smell his violets fragrance Viole Nere while my nose was still working and was blown away. He kindly gave me a box of samples, his Olfactory Memories Collection. He is a Master of the Interesting Topnote, a rare skill, and all his fragrances catch your attention. I have selected some among them that also command interest all the way into the drydown.

For paying subscribers, review of Viole Nere. More reviews to follow.