Does Cuba have the old Bordeaux mentality?

[Natedog]

There was a time when if you wanted to buy a good and by good I mean ready to drink bottle of Bordeaux wine, you had to get something with age. That just the way it was made. You were not supposed to get a current/young vintage and expect it to taste good. It needed a lot of time to develop into the magnificent wines that they can be. Eventually with global demand and competition Bordeaux began making great young wines that still had fantastic age potential. See where I'm going with this? I find that a common response to most negative remarks or questions about Cuban cigars is they need to age. Put them in your humidor for 4,5,10 years and you will be rewarded. Or you got a bad box. So my questions are a) Does Cuba make great young/ready to smoke cigars? are they marca specific? c) do you just have to purchase cigars with age? Give me some feed back please.

[Onsto]

I think that this is less the case with Cuban cigars now than it has been before. Most 2006 and later boxes (my primary frame of reference as a realtively newer cigar smoker) seem to be pretty approachable right out of the gate, the limitation to that being that the aging potential CAN be reduced. The old (pre-95) Partagas and Bolivar blends were typically a lot stronger while young, but made for a more age-worthy product.

I have no source for this other than supposition, but it seems to me that the cigar market in general is focussing on more 'immediate' consumers who buy and smoke within a relatively short period of time, as opposed to hoarders, collectors and the slightly obsessed that buy in larger quantities and expect to age a little. It would make sense, if that were the case, for cigars to be produced primarily for their accessabililty when young, rather than their future potential.

[Puros Y Vino]

So my questions are:

a) Does Cuba make great young/ready to smoke cigars?

Are they marca specific?

c) do you just have to purchase cigars with age?

I haven't been at this long. But here's my observations. (with a grain of salt obviously)

a) Yes. I do believe that Cuba does make some great/young cigars. However, given recent publications( The World of the Habanos). We're learning that all new cigars are made with tobacco that has been aged at least two years. So that really skews what is "new" & "fresh".

Marca specific? Nothing scientific but observational. I think many of us have smoked some great freshies". I've had good RASS, QdO Coronas, even RyJ's. Even though the box code can be recent, there's a good chance the tobacco has some age on it. The only thing I've noticed is that Cohiba's are not that great young. They need age and they tend to benefit from it greatly. With that said, I've had some really good 2011/12 sticks. I'm dipping into my 2009 Siglo VI's and noticing a huge improvement as well. Basically, there are no hard and fast rules on this.

c) Sometime it's good to purchase cigars with age. Many prefer it due to experience. Ie...everything they've smoked from 2005 has been great for them. 2008, not so good. You can always age recent stock too. But many prefer to hunt for older box codes to "save time". From my experience. Cigars with 10+ years of age are very enjoyable and somewhat different from younger stock. FWIW. I started a thread about what's smoking well. There's been a lot of responses. Take a look through there and I'm sure you'll be surprised.

[Upmann2009]

@Shlomo. Well said!!!

[dangolf18]

Interesting question. I think the more expensive CC's get markedly better with age (I guess you can compare it to first growths). However, there are plenty of cheaper CC's like RASS and JL2 that do get a lot better with age. At the end of the totem pole are the Quintero, JLPs, etc. which can like inexpensive young bordeaux be perfectly satisfactory if not great cigars.

Like wine I think you also have to factor in whether the vintage was good or not. You're not going to get a whole lot out of aging first growths from a crappy vintage and you're not going to see a huge difference in aging a bad box of Cohibas (luckily I haven't come across a bad batch of Cohiba).

Last note. Like bordeaux, the terroir makes the final product superior. I'll take a $3-$5 CC over a $10-$15 NC most days just like I'd take a value bordeaux over a new world varietal. There are some exceptions of course. For example, some great wines coming out of Spain, Chile, Australia, New Zealand etc.

[LLC]

IMO good Bordeaux wines still need many years to be really good, more than cc's need. I would compare cc's to Australian wines, many are good young and will improve with age and some really need age to really shine.

[Colt45]

I think the cigar to wine comparison can sometimes be difficult. Wines are produced in bulk. Though tobaccos can be processed together, finished cigars are composed of individual leaves. For me it's a matter of consistency - with a good wine producer, you can usually be assured of the quality of the wine in a bottle - from one bottle to the next. I've found Cuban cigars to be less reliable and more of a crap shoot.

But perhaps the Cubans do have the mentality of the Bordelais when it comes to quality and pricing.

On a side note, If I had $20 to spend on a bottle of wine, I'd never consider the Bordeaux aisle.

[Justmi]

I subdivide it into two phases: settling down and aging. Aging is a subjective matter, to each and their own preferences. But letting cigars settle down should be done in the factory and not in our humidors. Its like whiskey manufacturers skipping the 8 year minimum maturation phase and handing the cask to you to do the waiting for them. Cigars should not come to us in the middle of a sick period.

[riazp]

I like Gary's comment. I share his pov. Some cigars are fantastic young, RASS comes to mind as does hoyo epi 2s. Some others dont...cohiba needs 3 years at a minimum to be a good smoke.

SHlomo makes a good point one mans cigar nemesis is another mans cigar utopia. I love psd4s but stogiecidal on the other hand never had any luck with em.

Smoke what you like. Buy mutiple boxes of it. Smoke one box fresh age other boxes to see how it evolves. Aging can also have an adverse effect where the cigar will just be dull and bland with many years of age on it. Just my two cents