I started this for the (now defunct?) The Cigar Network. (Marvin, seriously, do it...)
This was from back in June or so...
Had the exact same question.
The Grape, the Leaf, and the Difference
The connections between the cigar and wine industries? Literally countless. From the fundamental aspect that challenges one palate to the consumers who enjoy both, every aspect of each industry seems to be more and more intertwined with the other. Even the media personalities that dominate the industries are connected. Marvin Shanken operates both the largest cigar publication and one of the largest wine publications. His most prominent write, James Suckling, who left M. Shanken last year, is regarded as not only one of the respected wine critics, but is also a notable cigar personality, particularly in regards to Havana. This passion for wine and cigars doesn't escape those that are responsible for creating some of the world's finest luxuries. Examples? Tatuaje's Pete Johnson, an avid wine collector, named his parent company Havana Cellars. Havana Cellars distributes the Schrader Hispaniola, a Dominican cigar made out of the Para Ti factory for Fred Schrader, of Schrader Cellar Wines. Over the past decade, these connections have become more obvious as individuals in the cigar industry have began to boldly advertise their use of wine techniques in cigar products. Last summer saw the release of two single farm vintages: Tatuaje's La Vérité and Toraño's Single Region and later this year, Andre Farkas will release the Viaje Late Harvest, which claims to implement some of the same late harvesting techniques as the wine industry.
The fundamental question coming from someone who is not an avid wine consumer centers around the concept of "vintages" in wine. Vintage refers to the date of the crop used in the specific bottle of wine. David Diaz, author of Stogie Fresh, explains unlike cigar manufacturers, wine producers generally use crops from the same year because, "the wine industry is ruled by regulations on what can and can't go on a bottle. Wines will only display a vintage when all the fruit is from the same harvest year. So, if they want to display a vintage at all, all the fruit MUST be from the same vintage year. No choice in the matter." While the cigar industry features dates, it is nowhere towards the prevalence or science of wine. Habanos S.A., Tatuaje, Perdomo and a few others have placed dates on bands, but because of regulation these dates have held a wide variety of meanings, not just about when the tobacco was harvested. In addition, Bruce Lewis, VP of sales for Toraño Family Cigars, indicated that for Habanos, placing dates on boxes, for when they were rolled, has had mixed results. Certain years that are noted for problems become less desirable, while years that were better have higher demand. (Habanos S.A. is not alone in this practice, La Aurora, Padrón, A.J. Fernandez and others all box-date, yet the practice is far from prevalent.) Even more problematic, the dates only refer to packaging, not to actual tobaccos.
While single farm vintages have been around in the cigar industry for the better part of the last decade (starting with La Flor Dominicana's Litto Gomez Diez release in 2006), the practice hasn't really caught on. There's a variety of explanations, most fundamentally that using tobaccos from a variety of countries allowed for a much greater diversity in blends. Yet, Bruce Lewis indicates that the issue is likely deeper than production, rather at the consumer. He explains that in the wine industry, consumers expect that wines, even from the same vineyard, will vary year to year, the opposite of what he believes cigar consumers expect. The idea is that if you purchase a Fuente Hemingway Short Story, it should taste like the last Short Story you purchased, even if it was a decade ago. To conform to this belief, manufacturers are forced to be constantly tweaking blends, in many cases, multiple times a year. Henke Kelner, head of TABADOM Holdings, the company responsible for producing Davidoff, AVO, Zino, Paul Garmirian, Cusano and a few other brands, notes that for Davidoff White Label, they employ a "three year rule." Rather than using tobaccos just from one year, they will use a diversity of tobaccos from three consecutive years, so that as the tobacco changes, the cigars will only have subtle, presumably unnoticeable, differences as far as consumers are concerned.
No party interviewed was willing to give a conclusive answer as to which school of thought is better. They all noted that often times wine and cigar connoisseurs are the same person. For now, in the midst of a rush of wine practices being implemented in the cigar industry, including Pete Johnson's use of "futures" on his most recent La Vérité release, the differences surrounding vintage serve as one of the largest differences in philosophy between the heavily-connected worlds. While one can assume that single farm vintages and other wine practices will continue to be introduced and expanded in the premium tobacco industry, it seems unlikely that any change will occur on the concept of vintages. There is however a growing movement at the consumer and retail level for box dating to be introduced, particularly as the long-term aging of non-Cuban cigars begins to take prevalence. Yet, despite the use of box dating by companies large and small, it remains unclear if the cigar industry will be willing to make this change as a whole.
