James Suckling Most Recent Comments: See Also: Maduro Cohibas in Rainy LondonPosted: 04:27 PM ET, July 06, 2007
“F.. them,” said one of the cigar merchants at the outdoor cigar fest in the middle of the West End of London last night. ‘This will show them that they can’t stop us.”
He looked defiant and sure of himself. May be it was the mojito talking or the buzz of the Cohiba Maduro 5 he was smoking? But he was pissed off. And I don’t blame him. It seems strange not to be able to smoke in London, where many consider to be the world’s cigar Mecca. Since July 1, smoking has been prohibited in all public places, even in private public places like gentlemen’s clubs and country clubs.
It’s not going to be the same to stop in at my club in London, the Savile, and not smoke in the library or bar reading the paper with a glass of wine or Champagne. What am I going to have with my glass of vintage Port? London won’t be London any more.
But the tented cocktail party in a small park near Trafagar Square last night for about 500 people was more than a wake or protest to the loss of personal liberties like smoking in the UK. Hunters & Frankau, the UK agent for Cuban cigars, organized the event to celebrate the arrival of the new maduro Cohiba: Secretos (40 ring gauge by 4 3/8 inches) Magicos (52 ring by 4 ½ inches) and Genios (52 ring by 5 ½ inches). I smoked a Secretos during the two-hour event with a mojito talking to various cigar merchants and smokers.
It had the same spicy, coffee almost roasted dried meat character and the strength and richness of Cohiba that I remember when I smoked the cigar earlier this year in Havana. But perhaps it was a little less punchy. 91 points. Granted, this could have been due to the abysmal weather. It’s the first time I have ever had cold feet in July! What did Mark Twain say about the coldest winter he spent was a summer in San Francisco? Well, yesterday was one of the coldest and wettest days of the year for me! What would the great smoker say about wet and cold London in the summer like yesterday?
Anyway, we did get to smoke these Cohiba Maduro 5s, so I can’t complain too much. Read more
A Good RobustoPosted: 09:16 AM ET, June 28, 2007 I smoked a couple of Ramon Allones Specially Selected over the last week with some friends from Hong Kong. One is Alex Wong, who I believe is the greatest cigar collector in the world. He actually keeps the collection with his dad George.
Anyway, we smoked a RASS from my cellar, which was current production. It was boxed in July 2006. And we also smoked some from his collection, which were from 1996.
I found his robusto stronger and slightly bitter compared to mine, which had plenty of earthy, spicy, coffee and chocolate character. Mine was clearly a better smoke. It was balanced and flavorful without being harsh. 91 points. Try to get some if you get the chance.
The 1996 bothered me because of that bitter character. Alex thought that "it needed more age to come around," but I was not convinced. It was just too harsh and aggressive in the end. I was happy I had my cigars instead of his!
It’s good to see current production Cubans finally outdoing what I believe was a Golden Age for Cuban cigars, from 1988 to 1996.
A Boring PartagasPosted: 11:57 AM ET, June 14, 2007
A buddy of mine from Hong Kong, Thomas Boherer, stayed a few days in Tuscany at my house about a month ago and he was nice enough to leave a few cigars in my humidor. I am not completely sure of their age. But it seemed a current production smoke. They were big, burly ones too – a Partagas Salomones.
This is not the legendary Salomones, or perfecto/figuerado, that was made in 1996 in 100 humidors of 50 smokes. It was something made now or a few years ago.
In any case, I fired one up while I was watching a movie with my son the other night at home. I was looking forward to the spicy, earthy and rich character of a great Partagas. Unfortunately, the cigar didn’t deliver. It was rather mild with creamy, tobacco and tea character. It was even slightly weedy, or straw-like. It was a good smoke but nothing special. 86 points.
It’s funny, but big boring smokes can be real disappointments. I guess it’s because they are so big and beautiful that you expect more out of them than a small one. Anyway, I smoked it for about a half and hour and just put it down and let it go out. Why smoke a boring cigar?
The Terroir of Cuban CigarsPosted: 11:06 AM ET, June 04, 2007 I smoked a H. Upmann Magnum 46 over the weekend with a winemaker friend in Tuscany who also spends a lot of time in Geneva. The cigar was fantastic and it came from a large stash of 46s currently on sale at Gerard Pere et Fils in Geneva, which remains one of the great cigar shops in the world. Apparently, owner Vahe Gerard stocked up on the smokes about a year ago because he was impressed with their quality.
The man did well. In fact, I can still taste the Magnum 46's spicy, earthy, rich flavors and full and satisfying texture as I write this blog. The cigar has almost a decadent, meaty character to it.
“Smell this,” said my friend late in the evening on Saturday, holding his unlit 46 to his nose. “You don’t find that in cigars from other parts of the world. It’s that earthy, rich character that only Cubans deliver. What’s that all about?”
I explained to him as we lit up our smokes that it was all about the same things as great wine…soil, climate, fermentations, aging, processing, and manufacturing. The French have a word for it—terroir—in regards to wine. My understanding of the term is that the greatness of a wine is a question of the interplay of soil, climate and man. We might use a word in English like ecosystem. I am not sure what it would be in Spanish – ecosistema?
In any case, in my opinion great wine and great cigars are a question of terroir. It’s when that amazing combination of soil, climate and the work of man translates through tobacco and grapes, which ultimately become a great cigar or a great bottle of wine.
And I had that feeling last Saturday night when I was smoking a Magnum 46 with my friend. I gave it 93 points. Try one.
Cigars and CannesPosted: 10:54 AM ET, May 24, 2007 Cigars still seem to be in fashion in the movie world, at least in Cannes. I was in the South of France for the annual film festival last weekend with some friends from Hong Kong, including Peter Lam and David Tang—both who also happen to own a piece of The Pacfic Cigar Company Ltd., the distributor of Cuban cigars in the Far East as well as Canada.
Lam is also a director of Media Asia, which is one of the largest film companies in the Far East. As I wrote earlier this week in my blog for Wine Spectator, he was in Cannes selling a new film he has coming out later this year called ‘Warlords,” which could redefine Chinese movies. It’s an epic film about three brothers battling together in what was known as the Taiping Rebellion (1850-1864) during the Qing Dynasty.
There are lots of battle scenes but also a gripping story of betrayal, adultery and brotherhood that we can all understand. It is action packed and full of saga—along the lines of “Braveheart.”
Anyway, there were plenty of cigars burning during the weekend and I noticed at just about every restaurant or club I was in a number of people were smoking cigars. Most were puffing on robustos such as Partagas Serie D No. 4 or Hoyo de Monterrey Epicure No. 2, but a few were even brave enough to smoke Churchills and double coronas.
There’s not much better than sitting in Cannes with a nice smoke in an outside café and watching the world go by—especially during the Film Festival.
When Passion BlindsPosted: 09:01 AM ET, May 16, 2007 I appreciate the intense passion or enthusiasm some people have for cigars, particularly Cuban. But I think some times it gets carried away and it leads people to say ridiculous things.
For example, I have heard people say, and have seen them write, that Cigar Aficionado rates fake cigars because the descriptors and quality criteria we use are not the same as the ones they use, or not up to their standards. Or if there is a typo in an article I write, or some other mistake, then I am intentionally trying to slander Cuban cigars and all 11 million inhabitants of the island.
Chill hermano. Fuma. Calma.
I am sorry to disappoint them, but Cuba has made some bad cigars and will continue to, just like every other cigar producing country. Premium cigars,for the most part, are artisan products and quality can’t be completely controlled, especially when it’s hand made.
I was sitting in Havana a few months back and smoking a cigar with Ricardo Alarcon, who is president of Cuba’s National Assembly, and he agreed that quality in the late 1990s and the first few years of 2000 were not up to scratch. Why can’t others simply agree with the facts? Or at least try to understand them…
Global Warming and Cameroon WrappersPosted: 09:14 AM ET, May 04, 2007
My mobile phone rang early the other morning in Los Angeles, which woke me from dreams of sake and Trinidad Robusto Extras the night before. It was a bit hazy, but it was a familiar voice coming out of the small speaker—Josh Meerapfel, the young tobacco entrepreneur and grower who produces the best Cameroon wrapper in the world. If you smoke stuff like Fuente Don Carlos, then you have smoked Josh’s wrapper.
He’s a good friend and had just got back from Africa. “We need some rain, man,” he said. “It’s really got me nervous. We should be fine, but this weather is crazy.”
Sometimes we forget how cigars are really an agricultural product, especially when they are made with tobacco from Cameroon and the Central African Republic. Wrapper there is all hand grown and hand cultivated. There is no irrigation, no tractors, no nothing. I have been there. Most of the tobacco growers live in mud huts with no running water or electricity. It’s real Out of Africa/Dr. Livingston I Presume/Real Deal Jungle, with tobacco fields.
When I was there we would hike for miles through thick jungle to visit various growers. A few weeks before one of the Meerapfel's employees was attacked by a big cat. I can’t remember if it was a leopard or a lion or what. I didn’t care. I was sweating bullets walking through that jungle! I think I had to change my underwear when I got back to the camp.
Anyway, everyone speaks about the weird weather and how it affects their tobacco crop. I remember old Alejandro Robaina was talking about the same thing a few months back in Vuelta Abajo in Cuba.
Global warming is real. I hope the earth corrects itself soon. Or maybe we will be growing tobacco in Los Angeles, if we can find the space?
Cellaring CigarsPosted: 10:42 AM ET, April 30, 2007 I saw this this morning over my coffee, and I thought I better chime in. The parameters for aging cigars is always slightly subjective, but I prefer to have mine a little dry. That’s how it’s always been done in England, and the British are the specialists in aging smokes.
I prefer to keep my cigars around 65 percent humidity and 65 degrees. The latter is important to keep cool because warmer temperatures run the risk of allowing beetles to hatch and munch your sticks!
Anyway, here is a posting from Wine Spectator’s site on storing cigars in wine cellars. It’s from the Dr. Vinny section, which is a Q&A feature on the web.
April 27, 2007:
Dear Dr. Vinny,
I would like to start storing and presenting cigars openly in my wine cellar. Will it hurt my wine to store the cigars in the cellar side by side?
—Chris
Dear Chris,
It won’t hurt your wine, but it might hurt your cigars. I checked with Gordon Mott, executive editor of Cigar Aficionado, and he says that the ideal condition for cigar storage is a 70 degree temperature at 70 percent humidity, which roughly matches the growing conditions of the tobacco.
However, the ideal storage for wine is 55 degrees at about 70 percent humidity. This means that wine cellar temperature is generally too cool to store cigars. Why would that matter? Well, for one, humidity is also relative to temperature. I know it sounds like magic (it’s science!) but for every drop in temperature degree below the ideal for cigars 70 degree temperature, you need to increase the humidity to keep cigars properly humidified. If the air is too cold, it won’t be able to hold enough moisture in suspension. So at 55 degrees, you’d need about 80 percent humidity. Over the long term, your cigars are likely to dry out in your wine cellar. Read more
The Strength of HarmonyPosted: 07:46 AM ET, April 25, 2007
About a week ago I had a small dinner party at my house in Tuscany with Giacomo Neri of Casanova di Neri and Vicenzo Abbruzzese of Valdicava. These two guys are some of the best wine producers in Italy, making Tuscany’s famous red, Brunello di Montalcino. I gave both of their Brunellos 100 points about a month ago in Cigar Aficionado’s sister publication Wine Spectator. The wines were the 2001 Valdicava Brunello di Montalcino Madonna del Piano Riserva and the 2001 Casanova di Neri Brunello di Montalcino Cerretalto.
We drank those wines as well as two other 100-pointers: 2000 Bruno Giacosa Barolo Le Rocche del Falletto Riserva and 1990 Latour. I was feeling too generous that night. They were some of my best bottles in my cellar. But that is what great wines are for…drinking.
And all four wines were mind blowers. What was amazing about them was that they were powerful and rich; yet they continued to have an elegant, refined undertone. They did not blast you with fruit or tannins, like some modern wines today. It was all about balance. And all of them continue to deserve 100 points.
Thinking about that dinner also made me reflect about what we smoked after dinner. I had a cigar and wine merchant friend from Hong Kong over as well, Thomas Bohrer. I smoked a 1988 Hoyo de Monterrey Epicure No. 2 (50 ring gauge by 4 7/8 inches) as did Giacomo Neri while Thomas lit up one of my last 1993 Cohiba Siglo I’s (40 ring gauge by 4 inches). My and Giacomo’s cigars were so refined and flavorful with wonderful harmony with loads of tobacco, cedar and dried flower character. I gave it 96 points.
Thomas’s smoke, even though was a short one, was never finished. The guy loves cigars but I guess he found it too strong. I have smoked it many times and it is a blockbuster smoke. And I love it, especially with a rich espresso. Read more
Lovely Lonsdale
Posted: 11:06 AM ET, April 09, 2007 I am smoking a 1998 Partagas Lonsdale from a cedar cabinet of 50 cigars and it is lovely. It is balanced with lots of cedar, dried flower and cappuccino character. I don’t want it to go out. (92 points.) It was made in the Partagas factory in downtown Havana.
Whenever I smoke a lonsdale, I think of Havana. The cigar measures 42 ring gauge by 6 ½ inches long.
I remember that this was the preferred smoke of many of the top cigar people in Havana in the 1990s. It was to Cubans who smoke, what espresso is to Italians who drink coffee. I haven’t met many Italians who don’t drink coffee.
Or maybe smoking the lonsdale in Havana is like ordering a beer in Ireland? You get a Guinness. You don’t get another beer from a pub on the Emerald Island unless you ask for it.
I think that many of the old timers liked the Montecristo No. 1 when it came to lonsdales. They liked the mellow cedary character of the Monte. They also said that it was just the right length…longer than a corona or petite corona (Monte No. 3 and No. 4). Those cigars were just not long enough for after a meal.
I understand what they are saying, especially today after lunch.
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