Scents & Sensibility - Perfume in Victorian Culture with Noble One

It's December and amongst all the other things going on it's time for more books and booze matches - it's a lovely opportunity for me to get on various drinks related hobby horses and go on at much greater length than the majority of my customers would ever tolerate.

One of the great vinous passions in my life is sweet wine. The uninitiated or unconverted look askance at it, which is their loss, because there are some amazingly exciting wines out there. If you remain to be convinced think of these things as a dessert in their own right, and treat them as such - a small glass of something very good is an excellent way to finish off a meal, and lighter than an actual pudding. Sweet wine also really loves cheese.

I'm currently finishing off a bottle of Noble One left over from last weeks family get together. Noble One is a botrytis semillon from Australia, essentially an Australian take on the great wines of Sauternes. Noble refers to the botrytis which is also known as noble rot. It's a very specific sort of mould that removes the water from the grapes leaving wonderful complex flavours (in this case think marmalade, quince, glacé pineapple, and butterscotch). It's sweet, but has a beautiful balancing streak of acidity, I'm very much a fan.

The way we talk about wine and perfume has a lot common, which isn't surprising as it's your sense of smell that you really rely on to evaluate wine - nosing it is at least half the pleasure of drinking something good. And Noble One smells great.

Catherine Maxwell's 'Scents & Sensibility: Perfume in Victorian Literary Culture' (published by Oxford) is a long overdue exploration of Victorian literature through scent. I get the same frisson of excitement whenever I meet a familiar perfume or wine in a book, because suddenly there's the chance to make another connection, and to immerse yourself deeper in the text through the senses of smell and taste.

This is particularly interesting in Victorian literature because of their complicated and evolving relationship with perfume, and cosmetics generally. Scent is a shorthand for all sorts of things, so Maxwell's help in decoding what it means is fascinating. It's a thoroughly scholarly work (complete with splendidly academic chapter titles) that covers a whole range of writers from the canonical to the frankly obscure. It is also the perfect book for anyone who loves scent and Victorian literature (two of my favourite things), if I didn't already have a copy it would be top of my Christmas wish list.