Cetinje-born Kristina Kapisoda and her husband Andrea founded the brand “Note del Chianti”. Their handcrafted perfumes have reached clients across Italy and the United States, while she dedicated one special fragrance to Montenegro and to her late father, Čedo, who taught her never to forget where she came from.
A person may leave their hometown, but their hometown never entirely leaves them. It remains in their voice, their habits and memories, but also in those unexpected moments when a familiar scent takes us back to the place where we were once happiest.
Kristina Kapisoda left Cetinje as a young woman, carrying with her dreams, uncertainty and the sadness of leaving her family and homeland behind. Life took her to Italy, where she learned a new language, discovered a different culture and gradually built a life far away from everything that had once been familiar.
Years and kilometres, however, could not erase the scent of Cetinje’s linden trees, the wind from Lovćen or the sense of belonging to her native land. Many years later, those very scents and memories became part of both her personal and professional story.
Kristina was born in Cetinje, where she completed high school and played handball for many years. After graduating, she continued her education in Italy. She studied language and literature at La Sapienza University in Rome, while during a one-year return to Montenegro she further developed her business Italian at Mediterranean University in Podgorica.
After returning to Italy, she continued her education and completed postgraduate studies in economics and management in Florence. At the same time, she worked in a perfumery, where she gained her first practical experience in the industry that would later become her life’s calling. It was there that she also met her future husband, Andrea.
“Leaving Montenegro was one of the most difficult, but also one of the most important steps in my life. I left behind my family, my friends and everything that was familiar to me,” Kristina said.
A new language, a new culture and a completely different way of life required a great deal of adjustment. Yet, as she points out, those challenges taught her independence, perseverance and confidence in her own abilities. Her parents hold a particularly important place in that journey, as despite the distance, they supported her through the most important moments.
The combination of her studies in language and literature, economics and management proved invaluable in developing her brand. Her knowledge of languages enabled her to better understand people, cultures and emotions, while her business education helped her transform creative ideas into a sustainable business.
“Perfume is not just a product. It is a story, an emotion and an identity. To successfully run a brand like this, you need to know how to bring art and business together,” Kapisoda emphasised.
Andrea also played a major role in developing her business mindset. She says he has an exceptional talent for the business and that she learned a great deal from him.
Working in a perfumery opened the door to an entirely new world for Kristina. At the time, she could never have imagined just how profoundly fragrances would change her life.
As she and Andrea learned more about the perfume industry, the desire to create something of their own gradually grew – something different from commercial perfumery products, which are generally designed to appeal to as many people as possible. They wanted fragrances with character, scents that awaken memories and become part of the identity of the person wearing them.
Today, Kristina and Andrea run the brand together while raising their son, Massimo. In business, she says, they support and complement one another, while Andrea’s parents have also been an important source of support, having embraced her as their own daughter from the very beginning.
“Thanks to them, I found a second family in Italy, so even though I am far from Cetinje, I feel at home,” Kristina said.
After moving to Siena, the couple opened their own bottega in the heart of the city. There, they create handcrafted personal perfumes as well as fragrances for interiors. Kristina also creates fully bespoke perfumes and collaborates with luxury hotels, including Castiglion del Bosco, and has had the opportunity to work with numerous well-known personalities.
As a large number of their clients come from the United States, she also founded Note del Chianti Inc. in America, marking another step in the brand’s international expansion.
The name “Note del Chianti” was inspired by the region where Kristina and Andrea live and work. Tuscany’s vineyards, light, nature and traditions have become an inexhaustible source of inspiration.
Their perfumes are handcrafted in small batches, with great attention paid to every detail. One of the brand’s defining features is the possibility of creating a completely bespoke fragrance based on the client’s character, emotions and memories.
At their perfume workshop and boutique in Siena, visitors can experience an “olfactory tasting”. Fragrances are explored through a wine glass, whose shape allows the perfume notes to unfold in a distinctive way. In this way, perfumery is connected with Chianti’s rich winemaking tradition.
Special attention is also paid to the bottles. Each one undergoes a process of engraving and hand-painting carried out by local artisans from Chianti. In this way, even the packaging itself becomes a unique and authentic object.
For her, perfume is much more than a fragrance. It is a way of capturing a memory, an emotion and an entire experience in a single bottle, Kristina emphasised.
Creating bespoke perfumes is simultaneously the most demanding and the most beautiful part of her work. Before selecting the fragrance notes, Kristina speaks with the client, trying to understand not only what the person likes, but who they truly are.
Sometimes a single childhood memory or an emotion the client wishes to preserve becomes the inspiration for an entire perfume.
She particularly remembers a woman who told her about a childhood spent in her parents’ vineyard – the smell of earth after the rain, the apricot jam cake her grandmother made every summer, and her grandfather sitting on the terrace in the evening as the sun went down. When the client tried the finished perfume, she recognised her childhood in it and burst into tears.
“That was when I knew we hadn’t simply created a fragrance. We had given her back an entire summer,” Kapisoda recalled.
Collaborations with luxury hotels and famous personalities are, for her, a confirmation of quality, but she considers the greatest recognition to be the moment when a customer returns after several years and says that the perfume accompanied them through important events in their life.
The perfume industry is extremely competitive, with major brands backed by enormous budgets. Nevertheless, “Note del Chianti” is not trying to be the biggest, but rather to be recognised for its quality, personal approach and memorable experiences.
Regardless of the years she has spent in Italy, Montenegro has remained an important part of Kristina’s life and identity. For her, Cetinje represents family, memories, the warmth of human relationships and the sense of belonging that only one’s hometown can provide.
“Every return to Montenegro is, for me, a return to a part of myself. I don’t carry my homeland only in my heart – through my work, I have learned that I can carry it in a bottle as well,” she said.
Kristina has already created a perfume that represents Montenegro. She found inspiration in the contrasts that make the country unique – the meeting of sea and mountains, Mediterranean freshness and the rugged strength of Montenegro’s karst landscape.
The perfume’s fresh citrus notes evoke the sun-drenched Adriatic coast, while linden blossom lies at its heart. The scent of Cetinje’s linden trees in bloom is one of her most vivid childhood memories, but also an aroma that, she says, many people from Cetinje can recognise instantly.
The base of the perfume consists of cedar, pine and warm woody accords, evoking Montenegro’s forests, mountains and stone. For Kristina, the fragrance is an emotional journey through the nature, memories and identity of the country she comes from.
The perfume is also dedicated to her late father, Čedo Kapisoda, who taught her to love her homeland and never forget her roots.
“He is no longer with us, but his love for his homeland lives on in me, and I believe it lives in this perfume as well. If I had to describe it in one sentence, I would say it smells of freedom, sunshine, Cetinje’s linden trees and the wind descending from Lovćen towards the sea,” Kristina said.
When she looks back at the journey from a girl from Cetinje to an entrepreneur whose perfumes are winning over clients in Italy and America, Kristina is most proud of the fact that she never gave up on her dreams, even when things were at their most difficult.
Success, she says, does not happen overnight. Behind every achievement are years of work, sacrifice, learning and perseverance. Her advice to young people from Montenegro is to believe in themselves and not be afraid to step outside their comfort zone.
“Our origins are not a limitation, but a richness we carry with us. You do not need to give up your roots in order to succeed in the world. In fact, where we come from often becomes our greatest strength and the very thing that makes us recognisable,” Kapisoda said.
Her story shows that we do not carry our homeland only in our hearts. Sometimes it can fit inside a small bottle – powerful enough to take us home with a single breath.
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