L'Eau d'Hiver (Frédéric Malle Editions de Parfums, 2003, Jean-Claude Ellena)

As the ice winds of winter sweep across the northern hemisphere, what better way to warm up than with a spritz of warm, lustrous scent? Well, actually, there are a few, including a roaring log fire, the Slanket, and a one-way ticket to the Maldives. Still, there is something comforting about smelling warm in frosty weather, and certainly the smells of winter – cloves, mulled wine, pine needles, spiced fruit, animal fur – are among the greatest pleasures of the season.

It comes as a surprise that the perfumer who considers that he has the right to bag the name L'Eau d'Hiver – and, furthermore, to declare that it is "the first Eau Chaude" – is Jean-Claude Ellena. Ellena has churned out a few warm-spectrum smells (including L'Artisan's Ambre Extreme, and Acqua di Parma's Colonia Assoluta), but he is the master of fragile, icy freshness. His Bois Farine, for L'Artisan, is ethereal, bitter and woodsy. His Rose Poivrée, for his own Different Company, is stunningly unsweetened and piquant, almost an anti-floral. His Angéliques Sous La Pluie, also for Frédéric Malle, is one of the most peculiar and evasive scents out there, a bit like the olfactory equivalent of that odd shade of pale grey that looks vaguely powder-blue or lilac-tinged or even slightly pink or green or yellow in different lights. Admittedly, with Bigarade Concentrée, he has shown he can work up a sweat; but, just because he can, doesn't mean he wants to. Ellena makes perfumes like Dale Chihuly makes glass sculptures: delicate, intricate, precise; informed by nature, but otherworldly.

Fortunately, with L'Eau d'Hiver, he has played to his strengths. There's a hint of spice at the topnote, but it turns out to be a cool blast of angelica, backed up with iris and heliotrope. A few moments in, the flowers gradually begin to sour down, with a hint of elegant decay coming in; like three-day old water that has been used in a porcelain vase filled with irises and heliotropes, in fact. At this point, there is something distinctly rubbery going on. God knows what. If you're expecting the alleged honey note to impart any sweetness during this process, don't hold your breath. Ellena is far too subtle to pull a Miel de Bois-style overload.

And then it's gone, leaving behind it nothing but the faint sense of having recently been in a snowy garden. Possibly one with a pile of tyres in the corner. I still don't get why those are there, actually. Maybe it's the angelica.

Like all Ellena's best, L'Eau d'Hiver is complex, compelling, and intangible. What it is not, though, is an Eau Chaude. There is nothing chaude about it: this is a mysterious, dreamlike, wintry scent, but it's colder than Nicole Kidman's hands after a long, ungloved yak ride by a fjord on Christmas morning. Brrr. Pass the mulled wine.

Green Irish Tweed (Creed, 1985, Olivier Creed)

Lemon, verbena, iris, violet leaves, mysore sandalwood and ambergris

In many ways 1985 was a bleak year. The Rainbow Warrior was mined by French secret service agents, André Kertész, Orson Welles, Marc Chagall and Dian Fossey all died and Brothers in Arms by Dire Straits and Level 42's World Machine were both unleashed upon an unsuspecting public. Another modern menace, the mobile telephone also debuted in this benighted year whilst button-down collars and skinny ties ran rampant. It seems like a year that would best be beaten to death, buried and forgotten, never to be disinterred, even by the most culturally curious anthropologist.

The man wearing the button down collar and the skinny tie in 1985 is now approaching 50 and a respected banker with a golf club membership, a suit from M and S's Autograph range and drives a 2005 BMW 525i. He wears Davidoff's Cool Water as he sees it as a classic masculine fragrance that won't get commented upon by his golfing chums but will appease his family whose complaints about the infrequent splashing of Fabergé's Brut about his person have led him to go up market. As he screams down this dual carriageway of my imagination cursing the other motorists in their smaller, cheaper cars who don't yield the road to him as quickly as they ought he is suddenly aware of a vehicle serenely motoring down a small country road that runs parallel to the newer, more concrete bypass he favours. Well hell and damnation if it isn't Cary Grant. Cary Grant in a Bristol 411. Cary Grant in a Bristol 411 driving from the highlands of Scotland to Monte Carlo - pressing on, but not in a hurry.

And that is what defines Green Irish Tweed. It has effortless class. It has panache. It does for those who delight in perfume what seeing a Huntsman suit in the midst of a sea of Topman does for connoisseurs of fine tailoring. It is a perfume for people who appreciate detailing and quality in all things. Those who complain that it is no different from Davidoff's Cool Water are akin to those who do not notice silk linings, 4 button cuffs that are actually functioning cuffs, the delicate flare at the sleeve or the sculptural waisting of a jacket to improve its silhouette. These are subtle differences to be sure, but they are all important and separate the sublime from the merely acceptable.

Green Irish Tweed, along with so many Creed fragrances, has distinct notes of sandalwood and oakmoss. There is a definite scent of actual oak, a green sappy oak, that remains throughout the day. The sandalwood becomes more muted as the day wears on. The lemon, verbena and the floral ingredients combine to produce an almost incense like atmosphere under the oak whilst the ambergris provides a deep earthy scent that lasts throughout. The sensation of wearing Green Irish Tweed is that of wandering through a fir forest after a deluge. There is a sense of freshness to it, but it is not the astringent cleanliness that many more synthetic fragrances offer. One is still profoundly aware of nature's involvement in this smell, it is not some modernist, ersatz simulacrum of her. As the day wears on the foliage dries and, to continue the arboreal analogy, the forest reverts to a faintly dusty, fertile soil, leaf mulch and earthy scent that is calming, promotes quiet contemplation and yet makes one want to plunge one's fingers into the rich top soil and run it between ones fingers just for the sensation of rich fecundity and pure sensual pleasure. Perhaps 1985 wasn't a complete write-off after all?

As our banker returns to his detached mock Tudor house with its garden decking and carport, Cary has rounded the Mirabeau, pulled up in front of the Grand Hotel, emerged to the popping of the cooling Chrysler V8, smoothed his suit, taken a seat at the bar, ordered a very dry martini with a twist, and given the spiv in the dinner jacket with the suspicious bulge at the armpit to his left, who has just ordered a martini made with, God forbid, vodka "shaken, not stirred", a deservedly withering look.