Oliva Serie V Melanio Maduro Churchill (C&CRW)

[JustDave]

(Not a CC, but waiting on my first 24:24 to come in and this weekly review stuff helps me narrow down what I'm going to smoke and provides me an excuse to make some room 😉 )

Manufacturer: Oliva

Full name: Oliva Serie V Melanio Maduro Churchill

Contents: Nicaragua filler and binder, Mexican San Andrés Maduro wrapper 

Strength: Medium-Full

Source/age: Purchased in 2022, no known age statement.  Paid ~$16.

Size: 7 x 50 - box pressed

Build quality: Super smooth dark wrapper.  I'm not like the world's biggest fan of a box press, but okay.  Also, the Melanio Band is awfully far down the stick so that's kinda annoying.  I had some mildly uneven burning just at but nothing egregious or needing a touch up and it evened itself out on it's own before the first 1/3 was done.  Easy draw the entire time.

Cold Draw: V-Cut.  Cocoa nibs and feels 'dark'.  Wrapper doesn't have much flavor on it's own.

first light: Milder than you'd think given how dark the wrapper is.  Sweet flavors, dark chocolate, nice mouth feel.  

first third: Dark chocolate, pretty mild to be honest.  Not overly impressive, but nothing at fault. I keep expecting a bunch of bold flavors to show up and they aren't.

second third: Just more of the same.  Again, nothing bad, but not impressing me.

final third: chocolate now is chocolate cake.

Smoke time: 80 minutes

Overall thoughts:  If you smoke NCs and you aren't familiar with this cigar, or at least the Serie V you may be living under a rock.  Reputation is for an well made cigar full of smooth flavors which it is.  If you are coming at this as Nicaraguan and expecting pepper you aren't gonna get it, it's smooth and chocolate throughout.  

I really like Oliva Serie V Lanceros so I was expecting to like this more than I did.  Oh well, I'll smoke those at half the price.

[JC67]

Thanks for reviewing..  

[KCCubano]

Nice review. I have had a few of these and much prefer the V Lancero as well. 

[Kitchen]

Nice review!  

The Maduro is nice, but I prefer to go with the Natural on this one.  Personally I think the Figurado really exemplifies this blend.  Have you had that one?  

[Bill Hayes]

I go maduro on Rocky Patel and Padron usually but never on Oliva. The natural Churchill would be a completely different experience. A side by side would be interesting. Cheers for the review.

[El Presidente]

Back in May, we found underfilling on several Oliva M V Churchill which was a surprise. We didn't see it in the other sizes. 

There has been commentary on increased cases of  poor NC constuction in 2020/21. These were irregularities due to Covid challenges etal. 

[JustDave]

21 hours ago, Kitchen said:

Nice review!  

The Maduro is nice, but I prefer to go with the Natural on this one.  Personally I think the Figurado really exemplifies this blend.  Have you had that one?  

I haven't yet.  A friend new to cigars for some reason thought it looked fancy and grabbed it as his 'third cigar ever' without my notice and then promptly turned green.  Haven't really made the effort to get another.

 

15 hours ago, El Presidente said:

Back in May, we found underfilling on several Oliva M V Churchill which was a surprise. We didn't see it in the other sizes. 

There has been commentary on increased cases of  poor NC constuction in 2020/21. These were irregularities due to Covid challenges etal. 

I'll admit to being both surprised and in a way not.  A shame though.