As for the cigar, I am pairing the Gavi Di Gavi wine with a Cuban Crafters’ Cubano Claro Julieta. The reviews of the Cubano Claro have all been fabulous, including a 4 cigar rating by the Stogie Guys, a well respected cigar review blog and 93 points by Smoke Magazine, the only magazine that I trust for ratings. One of the panelists who rated the cigar for Smoke Magazine even gave it an unheard of 95 while claiming it’s “A very elegant cigar that can be smoked any time of day. Smooth finish that I did not feel a need to wash away.” The first thing that you will notice with the Cubano cigar is the beautiful Desflorado wrapper. It comes from the Corona of the tobacco plant, the highest leaves in the tree. They tend to get more sun than the others and have more nicotine. Since the tobacco is shade-grown, the leaves will get reddish without the big protruding veins usually found in these types of leaves. Cubano Claro is handmade by Cuban Crafters Cigars and is packed in a vintage humidor style box. The cigar box comes with a humidifier and a humidor. I noticed that the hygrometer is made in Germany. It’s got to be old as I can’t recall seeing hygrometers made in Germany as the cost is presently too high. I would say that this box has at least 20 years on it. Supposedly it came from a large cigar maker that had them put away and never used. He traded the boxes for tobacco that he needed.

Back to the Gavi Di Gavi. It’s made to be served well chilled, so make sure that you drink it at the right temperature. The aromas are enticing and include peach and melon. It also has roasted nuts and raw almonds. At first the wine is fruity with light pineapple notes. The acidity is good, not too powerful. I can tell from the start that it will not affect the taste of the cigar. Citrus tends to impact your taste buds and will generally give any cigar a light bitter taste. In other words, stay away from citrus tasting wines when smoking. This wine is creamy, with berries and plums. Delightful for a Gavi Di Gavi. After a few sips, it’s time to light up the Cubano Claro cigar.

The burn is nice and the taste starts very smooth. From the start you taste the sweet spices. The medium bodied smoke has toasted nuts and cream. A perfect combination for the wine. I’m done with the first glass of wine and immediately pull the bottle out of the refrigerator to pour another. That first glass of wine went by too quickly. That’s usually a very good sign. The cigar is now transforming to deep complex tastes. It’s definitely getting stronger yet it’s still smooth. The transformation brings in coffee with cream, white chocolate and a butter like feeling on the tongue. The sweet spices are still around, with mild notes of nutmeg and a little cedar. All the tastes intermingle, making this a very enjoyable smoke that doesn’t get boring. The fruit and cream of the wine add to the experience.

The Cubano Claro’s taste intensifies past the half-way mark yet stays extremely smooth. It’s now full-bodied with more white chocolate than before. It’s just not as sweet as when I first started smoking it, yet still has sweet notes. The wine’s creamy fruit enhances the taste of the cigar, yet I can now sense a little lemon in the back. That concerns me, yet it hasn’t affected the cigar’s taste that much. I do sense a light dry ceder taste in the background that I had not sensed before. This could be the result of the wine, but the wine’s creamy and fruity taste overshadows it.

I’m down to the last quarter of the cigar. Definitely a full-bodied smoke by now. The coffee with cream, surrounded by layers of white chocolate, makes this a memorable moment. The wine’s creamy fruit tastes coats the tongue and adds to the pleasure. Definitely a good wine and cigar pair that I highly recommend. Both the wine and the cigar individually are a wonderful experience, but together add to each other. Do them together.

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.

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.

Recently I’ve had the pleasure of watching the movie “El Benny”, which is based on the life and career of Benny More, one of Cuba’s most talented and famous musicians in history. The movie is centered around the span of his career ranging between the mid/late 1940’s through the early 1960’s. The score throughout and the scene scapes are reminiscent of the golden age of Cuba.
As a perfect match while watching the film, I started up a Medina 1959 Miami Edition Corona Gorda cigar. I picked up a box of these incredible cigars that were just recently released and have been thoroughly satisfied since. Going through the spectrum, the Corona defines a medium body smoke. There are tastes of mild spices, toasted nuts and a hint of butterscotch with sweet malt cream that makes it a superb and enriching experience.

Both the film and the cigar reminded me of the luxury and romance of the Cuban deco years. In 1959 particularly, it was an historic and monumental year for the country. With the rise of Fidel Castro, we watched many things change. In 1959, we watched the peak of an explosion of Cuban culture that entered the mainstream of other continents as the country hosted legendary talent in art, music and industry.

It was also during this time that one of those talents, Manuel Medina, began rolling cigars. Working as a roller in Cuba for H. Upman, it was obvious from the start that his talents were an asset. Shortly thereafter, Medina began his role as the factory’s Master Cigar Maker and to this day continues as a true visionary of his trade.

The Cuban Crafters Medina 1959 Miami Edition Corona Gorda is a genuine staple of the pre-Castro Cuban cigar era of creating cigars. The combination of tobacco was blended by Medina to match the exact taste that legendary Cuban cigars were made of.

“El Benny” revisits a time where Cuba was a global destination and glowing with vibrance and energy. It follows the life of a Cuban with passion, skill and determination that demanded (and received) attention. It’s only fitting to be able to smoke a cigar that plays tribute to this theme. The 1959 Miami Edition cigars are a perfect addition to any cigar collection for those who desire the definitive quality only a true Cuban master roller could produce.