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Real Estate Developer Buys Cigar Factory, Starts Brand

Gregory Mottola
Posted: January 19, 2007

The newest Dominican cigar brand is the result of a personal quest gone large.

After decades of being a prolific cigar smoker, real-estate developer Gene Arganese hoped to commission a Dominican factory to produce private-label cigars exclusively for his personal use. He toured several factories in the Dominican Republic, but was dissatisfied with the limited control he would have had over the blending process, so he decided to buy an entire factory instead and devote the operation solely to the production of his cigars.

The factory, Tabacalera Don Rogue, is located in the cigarmaking down of Tamboril, Dominican Republic. Arganese acquired the factory in February 2005 and promptly renamed it Arganese Dominicana S.A. Over the past year he has staffed the factory with blenders and rollers.

For more on this story, see the January 9 issue of Cigar Insider.