Perfume Making in Grasse

Grasse turned from tanning hides to making perfume in the sixteenth century, and the whole chain still exists here: fields of Centifolia rose and jasmine in the surrounding hills, plants that turn petals into concrete and absolute, and trained noses who compose from thousands of materials. UNESCO listed the combination in 2018, treating the growing, the processing and the composing as one body of knowledge rather than three separate trades. The rose harvest lasts a few weeks in May and jasmine follows in August, both picked by hand at dawn. A public museum in the old town covers the history, and the historic houses run tours where visitors blend a bottle to take away.

What you actually see

• The perfume museum - bottles, stills and the history of the trade.
• Blending workshops - an hour at an organ of raw materials, one bottle out.
• The May rose harvest - hand picking at dawn in the fields around the town.
• The old town - steep, worn lanes on the hillside above the coast.

When to go

May and August are the harvest weeks and the only time the agricultural side is visible; outside them the story is told indoors. A jasmine festival takes over the town in early August. Grasse sits high enough to run a few degrees cooler than the coast, which makes it a sensible summer day out from Cannes or Antibes.

Honest expectations

The flower fields are private working land and access runs through organised visits only, so most people see processing and shops rather than agriculture. Tours finish in a sales room by design. The old town is worn and ordinary next to the coastal resorts, and visitors expecting something polished are let down. Workshops book out in summer.

Nearby

The hill villages of Gourdon and Valbonne, the Loup gorges inland and the coast at Cannes.