From 3I Atlas to Artemis II this last trip around the sun has had us all staring at the heavens in awe.
It is fitting then that a perfume that recalls the great comet of 1811 was completed under the interstellar comet named 3I Atlas. I had no way of knowing that the comet was coming (it was discovered on July 1, 2025) or that the skies would line up so perfectly. In France, that harbinger, 225 years ago, was called Napoleon’s comet and there was a real sense that the comet was sending a message of what was to come, an omen that the end was near. So people would drink the sweet bubbles of champagne (champagne was sweeter then!) until the sun rose, staring at the heavens in wonder as though it was their last night on earth. This is how champagne got the nickname “Sweetest Assassin” and also marked the first ever “comet vintage” for champagne. Comet vintages are known for their excellence, because comets often bring on great harvests and a kind of magic from the heavens that only wines can capture. After all what else is fermentation but a reflection of the cosmos themselves? The comet Lovejoy was recorded to have a comet tail of ethanol, confusing scientists and confirming what wine enthusiast always knew. That comets and champagne are twin souls.
Sweetest Assassin, the perfume was made under more than one comet as it took several years to make. It is the first perfume wine ver made using champagne techniques, strictly adhering to “Method Champenoise” or more accurately “Method Traditionale” as it was made in California using heirloom peche de vigne and local flowers that were extracted with champagne varietals. The final smell is a creamy floral vintage champagne, made deeper by aging and strict adherence to the very principals of champagne and innovations made bu the Widow Cliquot so many years ago.