Meridian Noir

Setting the plate

Five formulas

The house

14 rue Sainte, Marseille 13001
Maison de parfum, founded 2016

Meridian Noir

Maison de parfum · Marseille · since 2016

A perfume is a place held at one hour of one day.

MERIDIAN NOIR makes five perfumes. Each is built from material cut at one place, on one day, at one fixed minute — the hour the plant gives up the most of what it has, and the hour its shadow is shortest. That minute is the name on the bottle.

Harvest record · Cypress 12:04

Latitude
43°17′14″ N
Longitude
05°22′08″ E
Altitude
12 m
Solar transit
12:00
The cut
12:04
Air
31 °C
Date
4 August

Five coordinates. Marseille · Uyuni · Grand Îlet · Ohara · San Polo

The index

Five formulas, in the order they were fixed.

Formula The cut Coordinates Place Air Dominant material Fixed
Cypress 12:04 43°17′14″ N   05°22′08″ E Marseille, France 31 °C Cypress wood, sun-checked limestone 2016
Halite 11:52 20°08′22″ S   67°29′41″ W Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia 17 °C Rock salt, borax, thin cold air 2018
Vetiver 12:31 21°06′55″ S   55°32′10″ E Grand Îlet, Réunion 27 °C Vetiver root, two years in ground 2019
Hinoki 13:07 35°00′41″ N   135°46′03″ E Ohara, Kyoto 9 °C Hinoki heartwood, wet moss 2021
Orris 12:18 43°46′10″ N   11°15′28″ E San Polo, Florence 33 °C Orris butter, six years dried 2023

Hours are apparent solar time. Transit is 12:00 by definition; the number on the label is the minute we cut. The arc is the sun’s path on the day of the harvest, and the mark is where the cut falls on it.

How one of them is built

Cypress 12:04. Seven lines, and the last one is alcohol.

  1. Cypress absoluteCupressus sempervirens · Provence

    18.0%

    Distilled from wood cut in February, not from the needles. The needles give a cleaner, thinner smell that is gone within the hour.

  2. Cistus labdanumResin · Andalusia

    12.4%

    Still combed off the fleeces of goats in one village. We buy the whole year’s yield and have done since 2017.

  3. Sun-checked limestoneAccord · built in house

    11.2%

    There is no such material. It is three: a mineral aldehyde, a trace of gunflint, and dry ambrette.

  4. Ambrette seedCO₂ extract · Ecuador

    9.0%

  5. ImmortelleAbsolute · Corsica

    6.5%

    Six kilos of flower for ten grams of absolute. It is most of what the bottle costs.

  6. Pink peppercornCO₂ extract · Réunion

    4.8%

    Present for the first eleven minutes. After that it is not there, and it is not supposed to be.

  7. Ethanol 96% and still waterMarseille

    38.1%

On skin

  1. 0–11 min Pepper, and the salt off the water.
  2. 11–90 min Cypress wood. Stone that has been in the sun.
  3. 90 min – 6 h Immortelle and labdanum, warm, close to the skin.
  4. 6 h onward Ambrette, and a dry mineral trace that stays overnight.

Cypress 12:04 · 4 August · 43°17′14″ N · apparent solar time

12:04

Altitude
63.7°
Shadow
0.49 × h
Air
31 °C

Transit passed four minutes ago. Peak volatile fraction, and the shadow is as short as it will be this year.

The cut

One day at 43°17′ N, from first light to last. The flacon stands on the plate as the gnomon of a sundial, and the shadow does the reading.

  1. 05:00 First light. The stomata are shut. Nothing is leaving the plant.
  2. 06:20 The resin is still hard. Nothing will move for another two hours.
  3. 08:40 The shadow is halving every forty minutes.
  4. 10:50 Warm enough to work on the terrace. Nothing is cut yet.
  5. 12:00 Transit. The shadow is 0.49 × height and will not get shorter this year.
  6. 12:04 The cut.
  7. 12:21 Twelve kilos of wood into the still, and the door shut behind it.
  8. 15:10 The lighter fractions are already gone. What is left is the base.
  9. 17:30 The stone gives back what it took.
  10. 19:00 Everything after this hour belongs to a different formula.

What it costs to be exact

Orris. Iris pallida rhizomes are lifted in the third year and then dried for six more before they smell of anything at all. A thousand kilos of rhizome yield roughly one kilo of butter. It is the most expensive material we buy, and Orris 12:18 carries 2.9% of it, which is why that bottle costs what the other four do not.

Immortelle. Six kilos of flower, ten grams of absolute, and a four-day window in early August when the heads are open and the stems have not yet gone woody. We take the Corsican harvest whole or we take none of it.

Labdanum. One village in Andalusia still combs the resin off the fleeces of goats that have walked through the cistus. We have bought that village’s entire yield every year since 2017. There is no second supplier, and we have not looked for one.

Vetiver. Cut at two years in the ground rather than eighteen months. The extra six months is where the smoke comes from; at eighteen months the root is green and the formula reads like a different perfume.

We distil on site. Nothing travels as raw material — the still goes to the field, and the first fraction is in glass within the hour.

The index is not sold in stores.

Each formula is bottled twice a year, in the week after its harvest. Sixty millilitres, a hundred, and a nine-millilitre decant that exists because the hundred does not fit in hand luggage.

Formula 9 ml 60 ml 100 ml
Cypress 12:04€48€215€310
Halite 11:52€52€235€340
Vetiver 12:31€50€225€325
Hinoki 13:07€56€255€370
Orris 12:18€74€340€495

Write to the atelier

One letter, twice a year, in the week the stills run. Nothing else.