Cuban torcedora tours Mexico
By Kennedy Poyser

The Havana Cigar Company at Hernández Macías 92 offers a little civil disobedience to spice up your enjoyment of the world’s best cigars. Just buy and light up a Cohiba or Montecristo from Cuba and you’ll have the delicious pleasure of flaunting federal law with 100-percent certainty of getting away with it. 

Recently the shop hosted an expert torcedora (cigar roller) from Havana, Judith Rivero Delgado de Oramas. She looks and acts nothing at all like Che Guevara, but still added a personal touch to the allure of Cuban cigars. She can roll several thousand dollars worth of cigars in a single day. She’s been working nine years, beginning at age 18, and is now an expert Category 9—about as good as it’s possible to be. Her tour has taken her to the better cigar shops in Mexico City, Puebla, Hermosillo and now San Miguel to promote the Partagas factory in Havana. 

Partagas makes the Cohiba Siglo VI, Double Corona, Churchill Romeo y Julieta and Robusto Serie D #4, among many others. The first three are expensive big cigars (7–8 inches in length), while the Robusto at 4–5 inches is increasingly popular because you don’t need to block out a chunk of time to smoke it.

Judith remembers Steven Spielberg’s visit to Partagas, but has never seen Fidel Castro at the factory—she knows him only from television.

El Commandante made Cohibas famous because for a time they were made only for him and the process was a state secret. The CIA, after all, is rumored to have attempted poisoning his cigars, so Castro would naturally want a secure source. Greater production of three Cohiba types began in 1968, though only Castro and his friends had them; visiting heads of state might be given a box or two. Castro’s favorite was the Cohiba Lancero. Production only for government and diplomatic purposes lasted 14 years, until commercial quantities became available to the public in 1982.

Legends abound about Cuban cigars and President John F. Kennedy, who often partied in Cuba prior to the 1959 revolution. One persistent legend is that, on the night before he signed the embargo on February 7, 1962, the President sent Pierre Salinger out to buy Havana cigars before they became illegal. The resourceful Salinger returned with 1,200 Petit Upmanns. These may have been the cigars Kennedy smoked in the Oval Office, as recounted by photojournalist S.H. Linden in Cigar Aficionado, June 2007.

Cohiba takes its name from what natives called the bundles of burning leaves they offered to sailors during Columbus’s stopover in Cuba on his first voyage. That’s why you see the tag line “Unicos desde 1492” on ads for Cohiba. The Spanish enjoyed these early proto-cigars and were able to maintain a monopoly on Cuban cigar production for centuries.

The principle remains unchanged (a roll of tobacco leaves), but today’s standards are stringent. Expert rollers flawlessly combine up to five types of tobacco in a tube that draws easily, with no hotspots, through the entire two hours it might take to smoke a large Double Corona. Prescribed length is precise and diameter hardly varies the thickness of a tobacco leaf. A diameter gauge, in fact, is one way to test for fake Cuban cigars. Most won’t even pass the label test, though. Real Cohibas have gold-embossed labels—the fake I saw had a color Xerox label with punctuation and design errors. It was offered at 40 pesos, about one-tenth the cost of the real thing.

Cuban cigars are luxury items and cost 65 to 650 pesos, whether you buy them in Havana, London or San Miguel. Spain is one exception—low tobacco taxes mean savings of up to 70 percent on Cuban cigars.

The General Cigar Company and Altadis S.A. distribute most cigars worldwide. Altadis is a Spanish corporation headquartered in Madrid, formed in the late nineties by merging the Spanish and French tobacco monopolies. In 2000, they bought half of Habanos S.A., the marketing organization for the Cuban government. With their acquisition of US Consolidated Cigar, Altadis became a shining example of sneakiness in international commerce. Despite the embargo, millions of Cuban cigars reach world markets under the auspices of a company with a large US division. Through licensing arrangements with the former factory owners who fled Castro, AltadisUSA even sells most Cuban brands in the US, though the cigars are rolled elsewhere from tobacco grown in Nicaragua, Honduras and the Dominican Republic. 

These three countries, and Cuba, account for most of the premium cigars among the 2,500 brands currently available. Castro nationalized the tobacco industry in 1962, so growers and factory owners with suspect politics moved their operations to nearby countries. Charlie Toraño, now a Nicaraguan grower, even released the “Exodus 1959,” a cigar commemorating the diaspora.

Litto Gomez capitalized on the nineties’ cigar boom to found a company headquartered in Miami, with farms and factory in the Dominican Republic, where wages are low and the climate is good for cigar tobacco. His best-known brand is La Flor Dominicana.

Many cigars are blends from tobaccos grown in unlikely places. For the capa (outer wrapper), commercial buyers may travel to Ecuador, Cameroon in Africa, or even Connecticut, whose wrapper leaves grown under gauzy shades are much favored for color and uniformity. The capote (binder) might come from Nicaragua, while the three-part tripa, or center filler, could be an eclectic mix of velado for strength, seco for draw and ligero for aroma. Buyers often want huge quantities to assure continuity of a brand, because the short-sighted buyer might return the following year to find the tobacco acreage devastated by a hurricane.

Pundits expect a year of turmoil if the embargo is lifted. Everyone will want to try the formerly forbidden, but high costs of the Cuban imports mean most smokers will settle back with old favorites. Cuban Americans living in Miami might be the greatest roadblock to easing restrictions. Their block voting can swing Florida elections, and neither national party can afford to lose the state’s electoral votes. In effect, a tiny minority has fixed American foreign policy for decades.

Words on Wine

Finding good wine in San Miguel—mission impossible?
By Patric Ellsworth

Like many of you, I came to San Miguel from an environment where good wine can be found practically everywhere— wine shops, liquor stores, upper-end grocery stores and, increasingly, in major supermarket chains and big-box stores. The selection in all price ranges is enormous and bargains abound. With my move to San Miguel, all that changed. No more perusing long wine aisles pondering which of a dozen or so Sauvignon Blancs from New Zealand to choose, or finding the current release of that Sonoma County Zinfandel I’d grown fond of. The wine culture I had become so used to and taken for granted, seemingly doesn’t exist here. What’s a wine lover to do?

Well, one option is to bring your wine back with you from the US. This presents at least a couple of problems. First, Mexican Customs allows you to bring in only three liters of alcohol (four 750ml bottles) per person. If you’re caught with more, you could be subject to a fine and having the wine confiscated. Not an attractive proposition! Second, since you’re no longer allowed to put liquids in your carry-on luggage, you’re stuck with checking your wine. Anyone who has watched airline baggage handlers in action knows this is risky. Should you choose to go this route, use Styrofoam wine shippers and lots of bubble wrap—and pray!

The other option is to lower your expectations a bit and check out the local wine purveyors. As you may have discovered, there aren’t a whole lot of local sources for wine, but here are some of them—Costco, La Europea (San Miguel and Querétaro), Gigante, Mega and WineStyles. La Europea in Querétaro offers the largest selection and their prices are comparable to other stores. Their staff is helpful, though I wouldn’t say highly wine-knowledgeable. The San Miguel store is much smaller, with a more limited selection, and the narrow aisle can be difficult to navigate. WineStyles is attractive and well laid out, with a friendly staff and weekly wine tastings. I would like to see a broader range of wines, and a little more care taken in making their selections. Case in point—I found a 10-year-old white that promised to taste more like a sherry than the chardonnay the label said it was. Costco carries a fairly small number of wines, but some very good ones. Which brings us to Gigante and Mega—when these stores opene
d, I was elated at having a couple more places in which to browse for good vino. So far, I’ve been disappointed. Unless the situation has changed in the last couple of weeks, Mega’s wine shelves are riddled with empty slots. Whoever is stocking the shelves isn’t doing his/her job, or the store isn’t carrying enough inventory. The wine section at Gigante is better cared for, but the selection could be larger. 

Now that you know who’s who in wine stores, what is there to buy? Chilean wines, in general, offer the best value in terms of price and quality. Fortunately, they’re widely available. Chile is best known for Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Chardonnay and Carmenere (a wine which often tastes like a cross between Cabernet and Merlot). A few of the more reliable brands are Concha y Toro, Santa Rita, Montes and Miguel Torres Santa Digna. After Chile, look for wines from Argentina, especially Malbec, the perfect steak wines (check out Las Moras and Terrazas de los Andes). Spain is where Rioja and other Tempranillo-based wines are made, along with Rueda (Sauvignon Blanc and Verdejo). Torres and Marques de Riscal are two good labels.

And, of course, there’s Mexico. Mexican wines have made notable progress over the past couple of decades. Some good cabernet sauvignon is made here, and other red varieties show promise. L.A. Cetto makes a nice Nebbiolo Reserva and some pretty good Zinfandel from Baja. The US and France aren’t particularly well represented in this market, and other countries even less so. That said, I’m occasionally able to find that elusive New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc I so enjoy (Nobilo and Kim Crawford are two I’ve bought), albeit at about double US prices.

Speaking of prices, if you’re new to San Miguel, and haven’t yet checked out the wine shelves, be prepared for sticker shock. Wine prices are often 30 to 100 percent higher than in the US. Why? Your guess is as good as mine, but I suspect that taxes and multiple levels of middlemen (importers and wholesalers) are the chief culprits. What can you do about it? Probably nothing. Just be thankful that you live in Mexico where many other things cost less, enabling you to spend more on wine. That’s my philosophy, anyway.

Three to try

Las Moras Cabernet Sauvignon-Shiraz, San Juan (Argentina) 2005 75P—Costco. This is a combination I usually associate with Australia, but it works here, too. The 50/50 blend produces a full-bodied wine with spicy-berry flavors and light tannins. It can be enjoyed now, or aged for a year or two.

Porta Cabernet Sauvignon “Reserva,” Valle Aconcagua (Chile) 2006 58P—Costco. This could be my everyday red. Medium-bodied, fairly soft with nice fruit and vanilla flavors, this is one to drink now. The price is certainly right! And if you think 2006 is a bit young for a Cabernet, remember that in the southern hemisphere, they harvest in the spring.

Torres Vina Sol, Penedes (Spain) 2005 102P—La Europea. Made from the Parellada grape, native to Spain, this bone-dry white has lovely perfumed apple aromas, with nice complementary fruit flavors and a bit of flintiness. This wine goes well with chicken brochette, sea bass or mild cheese.

Patric Ellsworth is a former wine broker and home winemaker who now lives full-time in San Miguel. He may be reached at patworth@hotmail.com.