Sauvignon Blanc wine is usually considered the starters wine. It’s mild with mild fruit flavors, and at times lemony. While I normally prefer Chardonnay when drinking white wine, I decided to give Magito Sauvignon Blanc Rivertrace 2006 a shot with a comparably mild but flavorful Don Kiki White Label from the harvest of 2001 Double Corona.

First the Magito Sauvignon Blanc Rivertrace 2006. It comes from the California’s North Coast and it’s produced with 82% Sauvignon Blanc, 8% Viognier and 10% Verdelho. It’s the first time that I drink a wine with Verdelho that’s not from Spain. You’ll notice that it has a screw cap and not the traditional cork. Don’t let this influence you. Some of the best wines are now with screw caps, especially whites. The wine has crisp citrus and melon aromas that give a preview of what is coming. At first the wine is crisp and mild, with sweet melon that plays with lemon. I was somewhat concerned about smoking the cigar because citrus generally does not mix well with cigars. Citrus has a tendency to make cigars taste a little bitter. It has something to do with the taste buds. I’m hoping that the melon covers it enough to mix well with the cigar. To make sure that I don’t mess up this pairing, I drank a little bit of coffee to clean my palette. No more wine until after I start off the cigar.

Don Kiki White Label is a consistently good mild cigar. While some label it a medium-bodied cigar, I’m accustomed to smoking stronger cigars and therefore find most Connecticut-shade wrapper cigars to be mild.  I have run into 2 or 3 that seemed medium to full bodied, but those were the exceptions. Back to the Don Kiki White Label. It’s from the 2001 Vintage. This means that the filler tobacco is well aged and smooth-smoking. The Double Corona is 6 inches long with a ring gauge of 48. It’s not available in too many places as it has limited distribution. It comes from Cuban Crafters Cigars in Miami. This is Florida’s largest cigar store and it has a cigar factory in the center. You can smoke inside the store while drinking Cuban coffee with your cigar, and watching the Cuban-born cigar makers at work. It makes for an interesting experience.

The cigar started mild and smooth. You immediately taste cedar and nutmeg. After the first few puffs, the cream started taking over. After about an inch or so you start realizing why this cigar is always sold out. It’s delightfully smooth with sweet tobacco notes with vanilla notes and cream. The flavors blend beautifully, and the burn is exceptional. Now the real test, how does it go with the wine.

The first few sips of wine are as previously described. I made sure that the Sauvignon Blanc is cold, as I truly believe that white wine is meant to be drunk cold. Now I take a few puffs. The flavor is somewhat different than before. The cedar is more pronounced. I drink some more wine and finish the first cup while I take a few puffs. The cigar’s cream seems to bring out the sweeter fruit flavors of the wine. I’m almost one-third way down with the cigar. The flavors are intensifying. It plays well with the melon taste but I am starting to sense the citrus as an afterthought.

The wine in the mouth is fantastic by now. As I puff the cigar I do not feel the citrus affect, but after puffing out and swallowing, I feel the light bitterness caused by the citrus. It’s an acceptable level as the cedar and cream of the cigar overshadow it. Between the fruit and citrus of the wine and the cedar and cream of the cigar you have the bitter swallows. It’s sort of pleasure and pain, one making the other even better. But then again I may have been biased because of my past experiences with citrus drinks and cigar smoking.

My final recommendation is that while both are delightful individually, together they do not enhance each other. The citrus affect kicks in after the gulp. It’s an acceptable level of crisp bitters but defeats the purpose of drinking wine while smoking a cigar. Enjoy them by themselves, unless you prefer mild bittersweet intermissions.

My first time with a Carmel Valley Zinfandel was an excellent experience. Joullian Sias Cuvee Zinfandel 2004 is produced in small batches at the Joullian Vineyards of California. At first pouring, it has a very dark garnet color with a ruby rim around the glass. The aroma is slightly spicy with a bit of vanilla-tinged cherry, raspberry and rose petals. The first time it touches your mouth you will sense black pepper, lots of raspberry that broadens into a red currant, plum and rhubarb mid-palate. It all leads into an elegant, crisp and spicy-vanilla finish. All in all an incredibly delicious wine.

I kind of did the pairing a little different than I should have.  First I smoked a Cuban Crafters Cabinet Selection Robusto. A full body and extremely tasty cigar with rich earthy and floral tastes. About 2 hours later I opened and poured the wine. Drank a little just to get me ready, and then decided to have a herb-crusted filet mignon with a special rice combination that I like to call Bahamian rice.  If you have ever been to the Bahamas you will know what I am talking about. It’s rice with small red beans, a small amount of other beans, and what makes it special is a dash of Tabasco sauce. The Tabasco gives it a little kick. The Joullian wine was perfect for the meal, but I rationed it so that I can finish what was left with the cigar.

Cuban Crafters Cabinet Selection is a great cigar. While it’s full bodied, it’s so smooth that it does not overwhelm you. My problem with some full-body cigars is that as you smoke them they can overpower your taste buds to the point that you no longer enjoy it. This one, on the other hand, has so many complex tastes that you don’t want it to end. It’s one of my faves.

So I finish the meal, take a break, watch NUMBERS on TV and now it’s time for the cigar. As usual, the cigar lights nicely. I generally keep my cigars at around 60 to 65% humidity. Drier cigars burn better and taste better. It’s something that Rolando Reyes, a prominent cigar maker, taught me. The old man is amazing and he, along with Don Kiki, were the ones that got me into cigars.

The lighting has earthy tobacco taste with some floral and coffee tones. I also sense some leather and sweet notes. This cigar is made with Nicaraguan long-fillers from Esteli. Tobacco grown in Nicaragua’s Esteli tends to be earthy and sweet. That’s what made cigars from Nicaragua so popular. It is the fastest growing cigar exporting country, even in these economically challenging times.

The wine’s powerful red berry taste and peppery notes at first make the cigar taste milder than it really is. It also gives the cigar a sweeter taste than the first Cuban Crafters Robusto cigar I had today. About a quarter of the cigar is gone and now the flavors are starting to kick in. Chocolate and coffee are kicking in. I am starting to sense some tobacco taste in the wine. I’m pretty sure that it’s the wine itself and not the cigar fooling my taste buds. The cigar is now getting richer with more profound floral and chocolate notes. It plays perfectly with the peppery vanilla-cherry bold taste of the wine.  Both are now in perfect harmony. This is what you call the best part of the cigar, and the wine. Why couldn’t it be like this from the beginning? I guess if it did then you wouldn’t have a “best” part.

This is the worst part, the cigar is down to the nub and the experience is about to finish. It is one of those cigars that you want to chew at the end to get the last bit of flavor. You just don’t want it to finish. I still have a little wine left in the glass and it now has a little more pepper than it did before. This might be as a result of the cigar, or of allowing the wine to sit and oxygenate. All in all it’s a bold experience that’s not recommended for the faint at heart. This powerful wine was wonderful with the Cuban Crafters Robusto but might be better with a rougher tasting maduro broadleaf cigar. I’ll have to give it as shot and will report back.

Yesterday I had the Opus One wine and matched it up with an Arturo Fuente Opus X cigar. Since I was drinking alone, I didn’t drink all of the Opus One wine. With about ½ of the bottle left, I removed as much air as I can and sealed the bottle with a wine saver rubber cork. Wine can be stored in the refrigerator for a few days, but Opus One is too special to leave it uncorked or to leave it in the refrigerator for a few days. What a shame if it lost its character. 

I opened the refrigerator and pulled out the chilled bottle. I setup the wine glasses and asked a friend to join me. We talked about the cigar that would best go with this wine. After rummaging through 4 humidors, we decided that the taste of a Don Kiki Brown Label cigar would probably complement this exquisite wine. Don Kiki Brown Label is one of the best medium to full bodied cigars out there. The fact that they only cost about $2 each is an extra perk. You just can’t find a cigar this good at this price. My friend had a chance to see my previous post on the Opus Opus match and made it clear that I should have never paired the Opus X with the Opus One. Where was he yesterday?

We both lit the Don Kiki Brown Labels and started puffing them. He smoked a Churchill and I smoked a Toro. Rich clouds of smoke quickly covered the room. The smell of Nicaraguan tobacco, with its characteristic floral notes, blanketed the room. No one complained. As we started drinking the wine, the cigar’s tobacco taste started to develop. It went from earthy to licorice and cocoa. The Toro smoked beautifully and his Churchill started to burn a little too fast on the left side (his left). We quickly noticed that he had turned on the air purifier when I initially told him that we were smoking cigars, and the clean air from the purifier was hitting him on his left side. Fixing the burn issue of his Churchill was easy. We turned off the purifier and the cigar started to even out. We expedited the fix-up with a torch lighter.

The Opus One wine tasted a little different than it did yesterday. Some acidity was noticeable but not much. My buddy couldn’t sense it, but since I had drank it yesterday I was able to compare the wine’s taste from one day to another. The blackberry and smoky tobacco taste of the wine was still there, and went perfectly with the cigar. The cigar’s taste had developed into a complex combination of cocoa cream and toasted nuts. This paired well with the wine’s lush mouth-feel and deep dark berries taste. What a great combination.

As my Toro got shorter, the flavor intensified and was so smooth that I decided to put it down to saver the moment. Figuring that since my cigar is shorter than his Churchill, I needed to pace myself. We compared notes and his Churchill had a mild spice taste that I just couldn’t pick up in my Toro. It could be that since I tend to chew the cigar’s head a little and he doesn’t, I was picking up the stronger flavors that were being condensed as a result of my cigar’s wet head.

Savoring the wine, I proceeded to empty the bottle evenly between us. He gave me crap about his cigar being longer and therefore he deserved more of the wine. Since I had put my cigar down for a while, I showed him that we were down to about the same size. That’s a normal exchange between us. We tend to outwit each other to see who wins. It was my wine and my cigars so I won.

A Brown Label’s finish is a bittersweet moment. The taste intensifies and gets smoother, but on the other hand you know that the experience is about to end. Having finished the cigars, we drank what was left of the wine and both agreed that it was a very good match. We also decided that while this cigar and wine match was excellent, it may have been better with a cigar that has a creamier taste profile. We agreed to meet next week and see if this match can be outdone.

Today the stock market made a comeback. How long will it last? Nobody really knows but enjoy it while it’s there. Time to celebrate so I took out an Opus X cigar and smoked it while drinking Opus One wine. First about the Opus One wine. It is so smooth and coats your mouth with such delicious flavors that it made me think twice about lighting up the cigar. I just had to try the Opus Opus match so I lit up the cigar.

The cigar is wrapped in a cedar sleeve and has a red velvet cover at the bottom. It looks elegant, but at the price that they charge for them I want more than looks.  It is a very well made cigar and you can tell that the typical Cuban hand making process was used. The cigar was constructed using dry tobacco leaves and each one folded like an accordion. They call this style of rolling “abanico” and it is used in Cuba to make the higher priced cigars. It takes longer to make the cigar using this method, and obviously costs more. 

I lit the cigar and exhaled my first pure puff of smoke. The smoke was plentiful and had a heavy body. A good sign so far. The taste was floral with some notes of toasted nuts. It was smooth so the beginning went well with the Opus One. I kept drinking the lush wine that coated my mouth with delicious tastes of plum, blackberry and smokey tobacco. It was thick and overshadowed the cigar’s taste. The thick berry taste and a creamy mouth-feel of this wine just overwhelmed the mouth to the point that the cigar was just an afterthought.

I noticed that the cigar started burning unevenly so I put it down with the faster burning side facing down in an effort to have the burn problem correct itself. This usually works but after a few minutes it did not fully correct the burn, so I used my torch lighter to even out the burn. This had to be repeated a few times leading me to believe that the cigar’s wrapper or binder was not properly cured. The taste continued pretty much the same until I hit the half way mark. While the cigar’s taste turned a little more to the cream side, I noticed that some mild spices and peppery notes started showing up. They continued and by this point enhanced the wine’s taste a little.

I continued to indulge in the Opus One wine, a sip at a time. It’s an interesting wine that is made up of various different types of grapes. While it’s at least 80% Cabernet Sauvignon, it also has Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Malbec and Petit Verdot grapes. The blending of these grapes was clearly the work of a highly skilled winemaker. I will not tell you the vintage year of the wine because you’ll call me a hog for drinking it by myself. The smoothness of Opus One is unmatched by any other California red wine. Sure the price is steep, but heck the stock market is up today.

All in all the wine was spectacular and the cigar was good for a medium-bodied smoke. In my opinion a full bodied cigar with a creamy cocoa taste, like a Padron Aniversario or a J.L. Salazar y Hermanos would have been a better choice, as this cigar felt like it was lacking the complexity that this wine requires. The cigar just wasn’t what it’s been built up to be. I’m not saying it wasn’t good, it just lacked something that I can’t put my finger on. On the other hand, this wine is everything and more than you expect.