FRUITS, VEGETABLES AND NUTS / fruity · sweet · floral
Mirabelle
Category
FRUITS, VEGETABLES AND NUTS
Subcategory
fruity · sweet · floral
Origin
Volatility
Heart Note
Botanical
Prunus domestica subsp. syriaca
Appearance
Small yellow-orange stone fruit; no standardized essential oil
Odor Strength
Medium
Producing Countries
France (Lorraine — ~90% of world production, IGP since 1996). Minor cultivation in Germany, Luxembourg, and Belgium.
Pyramid
Heart
Warm, golden, honeyed — the scent of a sun-split stone fruit drying on a Lorraine windowsill. Benzaldehyde sharpness under a blanket of lactonic peach-skin sweetness. No essential oil exists. In perfumery, mirabelle is always a synthetic reconstruction.
Warmer and rounder than apricot, less tart than standard European plum, without the sulphurous edge of overripe stone fru it. The immediate impressi on is honeyed and golden — gamm a-decalactone's peach-skin creaminess layered over benzaldehyde's almond sharpness. A quiet balsamic warmth from ethyl cinnamate sits underneath, closer to dried fru it compote than fresh peel. The green quality is brief and subtle: a flash of nonadienal cucumber-freshness that dissipates with in seconds. Compared to peach (which reads juicier and more acidic) or nectarine (sharper, more citric), mirabelle is drier, sweeter, and more cooked — closer to confiture than to the fru it bowl.
Evolution over time
Immediately
Immediately
Golden, honeyed sweetness with a sharp benzaldehyde almond bite. Gamma-decalactone supplies a peach-skin creaminess. A brief green flash from nonadienal — cucumber, wet leaf — that vanishes in seconds.
After a few hours
After a few hours
The green note is gone. What remains is warm, balsamic, softly spicy — ethyl cinnamate and methyl cinnamate over a lactonic peach-cream base. More confiture than fresh fruit. Quiet, round, unaggressive.
After a few days
After a few days
A faint, dry, powdery sweetness on fabric. The lactonic creaminess has largely evaporated. What persists is a warm, generically fruity trace — closer to dried apricot than to the original plum.
The Full Story
Mirabelle is a small golden plum (Prunus domestica subsp. syriaca) cultivated almost exclusively in the Lorraine region of northeastern France, which concentrates approximately 90% of global commercial production. The fruit weighs 10–15 grams, ripens in August, and drops from the tree when ready — it is not picked. Since 1996, Mirabelle de Lorraine has held an Indication Géographique Protégée (IGP), the first French fruit to receive one. Annual harvest fluctuates with climate but averages around 15,000 tonnes from roughly 250,000 trees across 1,000 hectares of orchard.
The arom a of ripe mirabelle is driven by a characteristic set of volatiles identified by GC-MS: benzaldehyde (almond-marzipan sharpness), linalool (floral-terpy lift), gamm a-decalactone (peach-skin lactonic creaminess), ethyl cinnamate and methyl cinnamate (warm, balsamic-fruity), and nonadienal (green-cucumber freshness). In mirabelle eau-de-vie, (Z)-9-tetradecen-1-ol is a chemical fingerprint that distinguishes mirabelle spir its from other stone fru it brandies. The overall impressi on is warmer and more honeyed than a standard European plum, with less tartness and more of a cooked-fru it, confiture-adjacent sweetness.
No commercial essential oil or absolute of mirabelle exists for perfumery use. The fruit's aromatic compounds are too dilute and too bound to the pulp's sugar-water matrix to yield a viable extract. In fragrance, the mirabelle note is always a synthetic accord. The reconstruction typically centres on cinnamyl butyrate (CAS 103-61-7, balsamic-fruity character), combined with allyl ionone (violet-fruity), gamma-decalactone (peach-lactonic), and supporting cinnamate esters. The result approximates the warm, honeyed, stone-fruit character of the fresh fruit but tends to lack its green-almond bite.
René II, Duke of Lorraine — grands on of King René of Provence — is credited with establishing mirabelle cultivati on in the regi on in the fifteenth century. When phylloxer a destroyed Lorraine's vineyards in the early twentieth century, farmers replaced their ruined vines with mirabellier trees. The substituti on permanently redefined the agricultural territory. Today the fru it is distilled into eau-de-vie, baked into tartes, and preserved as confiture.
This note in Première Peau. Rose Monotone. Sample all seven extraits in the Discovery Set.
When phylloxera destroyed the vineyards of Lorraine in the early twentieth century, farmers replaced their ruined vines with mirabellier trees. The substitution was so successful that Lorraine now produces roughly 90% of the world’s commercial mirabelle crop — approximately 15,000 tonnes per year from 250,000 trees. In 1996, the Mirabelle de Lorraine became the first French fruit to receive an Indication Géographique Protégée (IGP).
Extraction & Chemistry
Extraction method: No commercial essential oil, absolute, or CO2 extract of mirabelle plum exists for perfumery use. The fruit's volatile fraction — dominated by benzaldehyde, linalool, gamma-decalactone, and cinnamate esters — is too dilute and too bound to the pulp's sugar-water matrix to yield a viable aromatic extract at any practical scale. Headspace analysis and GC-MS of the fresh fruit have catalogued the key odorants, but these remain analytical data, not extraction products. In perfumery, the mirabelle note is always a synthetic reconstruction from individual aroma chemicals. The fruit itself is processed into eau-de-vie by fermentation and distillation (Mirabelle de Lorraine, IGP since 1996), but the resulting spirit is a food product, not a perfumery material.
N/A — no commercial perfumery extract; Prunus domestica fruit extract CAS 90082-87-4 (cosmetic, not fragrance)
Botanical Name
Prunus domestica subsp. syriaca
IFRA Status
Not applicable — no natural mirabelle extract is used in perfumery. Synthetic reconstruction components (cinnamyl butyrate, allyl ionone, gamma-decalactone) carry their own individual IFRA restrictions.
Synonyms
MIRABELLE PLUM · MIRABELLE DE NANCY · MIRABELLE DE METZ · MIRABELLE DE LORRAINE · GOLDEN PLUM
Physical Properties
Odor Strength
Medium
Appearance
Small yellow-orange stone fruit; no standardized essential oil
In Perfumery
Mirabelle is a fantasy accord, not a raw material. No extractable oil or absolute is commercially available. The note is reconstructed synthetically, typically built around cinnamyl butyrate (CAS 103-61-7) for its balsamic-fruity warmth, allyl ionone for violet-fruity depth, and gamma-decalactone for peach-lactonic creaminess. Supporting esters — ethyl cinnamate, methyl cinnamate — add the warm, slightly spicy edge that distinguishes mirabelle from generic plum accords. In composition, the mirabelle accord functions as a heart note. It bridges fruity top notes (bergamot, citrus esters) to gourmand or amber bases, providing a golden, honeyed sweetness without the sharpness of fresh fruit or the darkness of dried prune. It pairs structurally with almond, apricot, heliotrope, tonka bean, and powdery musks. At low doses, it rounds floral hearts — adding a sense of warmth and ripeness to rose or jasmine without introducing identifiable fruitiness. No Première Peau fragrance currently features a mirabelle accord.
