I have a short, mental list of perfumes that I’ve liked over the years but not acquired. The idea is that I can live without them for now, being confident that they probably won’t be discontinued anytime soon. If I visit a perfumery for the first time while on a trip and wish to buy something there but haven’t found anything new that I want, then I can get something from that list.

Les Liquides Imaginaires Dom Rosa is on that list.

To celebrate the tenth anniversary of Dom Rosa this year, the brand released a more concentrated version (although they don’t call it an extrait), Dom Rosa Millésimé. The listed notes are the same, although the latter is described as “a perfectly aged rose champagne.” Both were authored by perfumer Sonia Constant.

• Top notes: champagne accord, grapefruit, pear accord
• Heart notes: damascena rose, clove, incense
• Base notes: woody accord, cedarwood, vetiver, guaiac wood

Now, of course, I had to try that to find out if I would like it better than the original. With a purchase at Luckyscent, I was able to request some free samples, and this was one of them. I wore it over the weekend to compare it with my somewhat distant memory of Dom Rosa.

On first sniff, Dom Rosa Millésimé is definitively more. More fruit, more wine, more flowers, more… green? There’s a lot going on in the opening. Fruit juice and fruit pulp form a medley of tart notes. Peaches, grapes, grapefruit, berries… I don’t get pear explicitly, but it might be in the mix in the form of a sweetener for other fruit juices. The ripe fruits blend well with what surfaces as an acidity (or “brightness”) of wine—I’m thinking red wine and wondering if that’s due to the power of suggestion by pictures of the red perfume bottle. If so, it’s certainly stronger than the suggestion of champagne listed in the top notes. Maybe it’s a Lambrusco.

Woody, papery notes signal what’s to come. But in the meantime, a green note. It’s a metallic, vegetal green—not the kind of metallic note you get from using oxides, but rather like celery, or fenugreek without the maple syrup aspect. Maybe this is where the clove and incense notes are hiding, which is a good thing as I don’t like the smell of clove on its own.

Dom Rosa Millésimé soon settles down into the familiar rosy, musky, woody blend that I know and love from the original Dom Rosa. It manages to maintain a trace of the top notes lingering and keeping it interesting, without the initial sharpness. This is a comforting drydown with only the smoothest aspects of fruited rose and woods suspended in a white musk.

Unless my memory proves to be wrong at the next encounter, I think I prefer the original.