Definitely a box (Buxus).

I vote for boxwood too. I must say, though, that I have never been able to detect its fragrance. First time I heard about it thought person was cuckoo. Nope.

I've never even see a flower on one, much less detected a fragrance. Dan, you must have a good nose. I'm gonna' to up and see if my sister's boxwoods are blooming.

What is blooming here that I can smell are the Winter Honeysuckles. HERE is an old post on them.

Boxwood flowers somewhat later here but the flowers are not obvious (typically referred to as 'inconspicuous')......the easiest way to determine when boxwood is in bloom is that it is very heavily visited by pollinators, so the shrub seems to thrum or vibrate with their activity.

I have never detected a scent from the flowers - certainly nothing like grape - and there is nothing in the literature to support this either. But then scent is a very subjective sense :-)) What there seems to be no confusion on is that at certain times of year (and in a lot of sun), boxwood foliage smells strongly like cat pee. Many people dislike it for this reason and often avoid planting it because of this.

On the other hand in Britain common box (along with yew) is an indicator species for limestone ridges.

Thanks, the input is much appreciated. I'm still new to gardening (starting my 4th year), but for 30 yrs I did analytical chemistry in a food testing lab. Early on I got tasked with identifying off-odors due to spoilage or contamination. In my spare time I pursued pleasant odors too, and examined the composition of many plants, beverages, flowers, essential oils, etc by mass spec. So I got some solid objective data on what's present in the scents. Nevertheless it's not a magic wand that can "test for everything", and of course human sensory perception will vary wildly.

Most grapes don't have a strong smell, except for the Concords. Regular Concord grapes (the ones with seeds, rarely available in grocery stores here) have methyl anthranilate predominating. There is some ethyl anthranilate in Texas Mountain Laurel (I never thought TML smelled like grapes; the mild pleasant smell comes from ethyl benzoate, IMO). This shrub had more aminoacetophenone. Corn tortillas have a faint hint of aminoacetophenone. Admittedly the food/snack industry overuses synthetic grape scent to the point it gets sickeningly sweet. Welch's purple grape juice is a halfway decent substitute when the fresh grapes are out of season.

I just started my seasonal check on this shrub, and found it was removed recently. It had been next to the sidewalk of a post office near my old workplace. My yard is small and I wasn't able to grow one anyway. But thankfully before retiring I did get chemical analysis on it 2 years in a row to confirm/refine my (subjective) olfactory diagnosis. I'll stop now without commenting on cat urine odor!

Thanks for mentioning the winter honeysuckle Ragna. I love the smell of regular honeysuckle extract, and want to grow some. I know NOT to grow the invasive Japanese variety.

When reading up on winter honeysuckle, some have said it has a lemony aroma. I love lemon aroma, but in my limited yard space I don't need a plant with lemon aroma. Can anyone comment, on growing something with strong classic honeysuckle aroma? (or lack thereof?)

I don't get a lemony aroma from winter honeysuckle - to me it smells like Earl Grey tea...

Lin

I planted winter honeysuckle but panicked b/c I heard so many conflicting comments plus confusion as to what is a true WH. I yanked it out, in panic. If it truly grows like a shrub and doesn’t spread, I’d love another.

ETA: nah, I don’t have space for that arching type shrub

Not to hi-jack your post Dan, but for Bossy and anyone else interested in winter honeysuckle, I came across this photo taken in April last year:

Here it is right now. It looks a little rangy during the winter, but so do a lot of other things. But its blooming ... :-)

I'm not so good at identifying scents. I'll leave that up to others, but I will say it doesn't smell like Japanese honeysuckle. I wish it did! I don't know of anything that does.

Dan, thanks for the interesting information about the chemistry of aromas in your post above.