MONTALE
INFINITY

2023

black cherry
cardamom
pink pepper
plum
saffron

indian rose
leather
oud
sandalwood
tuberose
vetiver

amber
musk
tobacco
tonka bean
vanilla sugar

‘There can be no mistaking his deep gaze. His eyes are fixated to the intangible and he moves forward peacefully. At first sight, this piquant character pulls you in. The brightness of his smile, and the pink Pepper come to pick you up. Cross his path and you immediately turn away from your routine. The space around him becomes his, permeated by a purple wave of Plum and black Cherry that whisper of its sweet origin and touch your soul. It’s a beautiful summer, a summer echoing its temperance and made of the sun’s caresses under the light sheets, of fresh Flowers opening in the morning and of starry nights in the souvenir of the scorching day. The soft Indian Rose gently balances the Leather and black Oud in a semi-hypnotic pendulum where Sandalwood and Vanilla mingle without excess. You are touching a rare, ambered and deeply oriental feeling, a sensation whose genesis you would not know: who from the message or the messenger, who from the wake one has been left in or its wearer? Who from the top note or the heart will take you to your own immensity? It doesn’t matter, because in the end, all roads lead to Infinity.’ – Montale

There have been a couple of good plum options leading up to this; most notably Scents Of Wood Plum In Cognac. This Montale offering is more leathery and to my surprise, I like it quite a bit.

The opening has a dominant, but not too overpowering cardamom. It’s instantly combined with saffron-leather and sweetness.

It’s pretty fruity. Now, I smelled this for about an hour without knowing the notes and my mind didn’t go to plum and cherry straight away. I thought I smelled grapefruit or orange, but after reading, the plum or cherry make sense. More on the sour side of cherry for me.

I have been harsh on Montale quite often, for being harsh (pun intended). For a fragrance with leather, saffron,oud, tobacco, tuberose and more listed, this is pretty well-balanced and not overly heavy, screechy or loud. It’s still big and probably a good performer, but it has a nuanced feeling that plenty Montale releases have lacked.

The tobacco is clearly there when you look for it, in which case it has some familiar cues from cherry tobacco fragrances. It has a generic, sweet, nondescript oudy vibe that adds a Middle Eastern-esque touch. However, this is mostly a fruity & spicy leather fragrance for me.

And as said, that’s in balance, there’s a pretty long lasting brightness and acidity cutting through. That, the sweetness and the cardamom are not unlike Electimuss Aquila Absolute, which I reviewed shortly before. Both having the same issue of having much of that sugary sweet woodiness in the mid for me to love them. This Montale is much more of a leather though and the late drydown is all leather.

I have not been checking out many Montale releases, so perhaps my perception of the brand is skewed. While Infinity fits in stylistically, it’s definitely one of the better executed releases I’ve tried from Montale.