J.L. Salazar y Hermanos Reserva Especial is a boutique premium cigar that has a large following among serious cigar smokers. The price is astonishing low when compared to comparable cigars in the market. My Salazar Series Churchill came from Cuban Crafters Cigars in Miami, Florida. It’s their latest release. The Salazar Reserva Especial Series Maduro, is in my humble opinion one of the best full-bodied cigars that has ever existed. I’m not exaggerating. It’s full of flavors and finishes with a floral, coffee and cocoa taste that will not let you put it down. It’s amazing how many of my friends describe it as medium-bodied because of how smooth it is. I decided that a smooth and flavorful full-bodied cigar needs an equally smooth and flavorful red wine.
Rolf Binder Winery makes some of the best Australian wines.
The Rolf Binder Hales 2003 is one of their serious Shiraz wines. I can’t think of better Shiraz than that coming from the Barossa Valley of Australia, and this one is an outstanding example. Rolf Binder Hales Shiraz has a powerful berry aroma out of the bottle. You can almost touch the fruit with your nose. You also smell the flowers and alcohol hiding behind the berries.
The cigar is lit and the wine glass is allowing the oxygen to penetrate the wine as I swirl it around. A little sip gets me ready for the wine’s flavors. As I smoke the cigar a few minutes pass and even though I know that I should let the wine air for a longer period of time, I can’t help it and start drinking. The rich blueberry taste comes through right from the start. It’s thick with sweet undertones of cream, blackberries and flowers. I can still taste touches of alcohol under the flavors but that’s probably my fault for not allowing the wine to air-out longer. It opens up as time goes by and the wine settles. Smokey flavors start to appear in the background, along with more pronounced flower notes.
The Shiraz is extremely smooth and the flavors keep building. You feel the wine getting thicker by the minute. It matches the J.L. Salazar Maduro Churchill I’m smoking as though they were made for each other. The rich smoke from the Salazar Maduro, combined with the interludes of Hales Shiraz, play with one another. They both have a floral background that allows one to flow to the other as though they came from the same terroir.
The cigar is past its halfway point and the wine coats its residue flavors as it flows past the tongue. I was somewhat concerned that the Shiraz wine may overpower the Maduro cigar, but that concern quickly vanishes. They were made for each other.
It’s almost an hour and by this time I’m sharing the red wine with Jose, another wine and cigar lover. My bragging about how the wine complements the cigar, and visa versa, leads him to light one up. His description of the pairing is very similar to mine. Validation is always good. It’s unanimous, this is one of the best cigar and wine match that we’ve ever had.
