Photo - www.mandelieu.com - Mimosa Festival Parade, 2011
Me: So where did you meet him?
She: At the Mimosa Festival in Mandelieu-La Napoule.
Our bums have barely touched our seats at the restaurant before I started grilling her on the new man in her life.
Me: What does he do?
She: He’s a mimosiste.
Me: Say wha?
She: You know, a mimosiste. His family grows mimosas in the south of France. He was involved in the festival.
Me: I know mimosas - fuzzy, yellow flowers, right?
I got the rest of her story over lunch and learned a lot about mimosas too.
Introduced to Europe by Captain Cook in the 19th century, mimosas thrived on the Côte d'Azur. Soon they were used in cosmetics and as a fixative in perfume and over time came to play an important role in the economic development of Grasse - so important that in 1931 the first Mimosa Festival was staged. Now a 10 day long annual event held in February, the Mimosa Festival draws over 60,000 visitors to the region each year.
I also learned that mimosas have a very confusing taxonomy with over 400 species in the genus. The mimosa we are talking about, the ones with bright yellow flower heads and a sweet, heliotrope-smelling fragrance are in fact acacias. Acacia dealbata to be specific.
Me: So what fragrance does a woman in love with a mimosiste wear?
She: Mimosa pour Moi by L’Artisan Parfumeur, natch. It smells like putting your nose in the middle of a whole bouquet – flower, stems and leaves - of mimosa. It’s so, so gorgeous.
To prove her point, she spritzes my wrist from a 50 ml. bottle of it she carries in her purse.
It’s gorgeous all right. Seriously gorgeous.
Mimosa pour Moi opens fresh and green from violet leaves. Blackcurrant buds, tangy and slightly woody join the violet leaves. There’s a spicy-fruity aspect to the blackcurrant bud that opens up to a heart of mimosa - a note of honey along with a with a whiff of cucumber – that’s subtly floral and a little woody. It deepens as it evolves until it comes to rest on a musky base of vanilla and cedarwood. The drydown is creamy, delicate and softly sweet. It has the radiance of a soft summer’s day and it smells like yellow sunshine.
She tells me her mimosiste says Mimosa pour Moi seduces with its innocence.
I don’t know how things will work out with the mimosiste, but Mimosa pour Moi is a real keeper.
Mimosa pour Moi is listed in our Decant Store. Decants are $5.00 for 1 ml.