Experiences of ageing decline?

[ayedfy]

Curious questions from a very infrequent smoker. 

Discussion of ageing seems to say one of:

1. Put this down for x years
2. Good now
3. Fine now but will get even better

Heard plenty stories of CCs that plateau with age, but none really about some declining after a certain point. In fact only heard this about some NCs.

Do you have any stories of cigars falling off a cliff after 10/15/20+ years? Anything you don't let sit too long in your humidor as it'll reliably decline? 

[SigmundChurchill]

Decline?  Yes.

Reliably?  No.

I have had old pre-embargo cigars that have tasted great, and others that have tasted like cardboard.

About 10 or 15 years ago, Cuban Davidoffs became very unreliable, to the point where I stopped buying them.  Yet, just 3 years ago I was looking for a 50th birthday cigar for myself, and a longtime trusted vendor told me that he had a box of Davidoffs that were smoking great right now, so I asked him to send me one, and it was phenomenal.  Even Dunhills, which  seemed to have more staying power can seem too "subtle" for my taste in recent years.  And I am a guy that like subtle flavors.

But a lot of it is luck of the draw.  How strong did the cigar start out in its inception?  How well was it stored?  Was it stored in a tube?  In cellophane?  In a cabinet or a dress box? Out in the open on a shelf?  Temp?  Humidity?  And, just how old is it?  These will all play a role.

[BrightonCorgi]

Monte A's start to fade off after 15-20 years.  Still a fun smoke, but it's much more delicate flavor.  Plenty of other ones will be mentioned I bet too.

[amberleaf]

I once had two boxes of Mar 2016 Punch Punch bought from an LCDH in Cuba, both were just two months old when I bought them. And by god were they good, and to date are in my top 10 boxes of all time.

 

So with just two months on them they just had to get even better with some time down, right?

 

Nope, after just a year lush fruitiness of the young cigars had subsided, and with a couple more years the complexity gave way to more linear experience. Still great cigars but I regret not smoking them all while they at their peak, which in this case was when they came almost straight off the rolling table.

 

The lesson I learned is that if a box is smoking great just dive in, aging is not an absolute guarantee of a better experience.

[Bijan]

From experience I'd say that after about 20 to 25 years of age this starts to be a concern though as has been said it's not 100% of the time.

[HarveyBoulevard]

My personal taste seems to prefer a range of 1 or 2 years to no more than 10.

I am likely in the minority here. Aged cigars seem too mild for my taste and I prefer a little mongrel in my smoke.

I see cigars on a bell curve of age and prefer them in the first quarter of their life.  My personal experience tells me cigars decline but I think everyone has a different taste spectrum when they make the determination.

 

[rcarlson]

1 hour ago, amberleaf said:

The lesson I learned is that if a box is smoking great just dive in, aging is not an absolute guarantee of a better experience.

So true.  

[SigmundChurchill]

1 hour ago, amberleaf said:

 

The lesson I learned is that if a box is smoking great just dive in, aging is not an absolute guarantee of a better experience.

 

7 minutes ago, rcarlson said:

So true.  

Absolutely.  I third this sentiment.  

Older isn't always better.  If you love the way they taste now.  Smoke them now.

[vladdraq]

i have a box of Monte 4's from early 2000's, or late 90' not sure, they barely taste anything. Also, they were kept in the same humidor with a  small Partagas vitola, these were in cello (don't know the name) and they taste much better. 

[ayedfy]

To fill in my personal curiosity for this thread: not really concerned with managing boxes - I only really have one remnant of a box in the form of about 20 Upmann Mag 46s that are sitting there with about five years on em so far. I suppose I was keeping an eye out not just with regards to those, which were certainly smoking great from the get-go, but also a handful of singles I have floating around in my box that I was wondering whether they'll last for yonks or if I should get around to them sooner rather than later. (A 7yo Diplomaticos No.2, a 7yo PL Picadores, a 12yo Upmann Sir Winston, and a 5yo R&J Petit Churchill. Just some odd bits and pieces from various trades/purchases a while back. Health reasons kept me out of the humidor for about 3-4 years at least.)

Regardless, loving hearing all these different perspectives and stories and learning about the preferences of you folks from experience, keep em coming!

[Monterey]

Ah, the reason we vacuum seal.  Stocked up while they were cheap (7 boxes of Fundadores that I paid 261 for each for example!) and enjoy for a couple of decades..

I've heard Sancho's are terrible agers.  Haven't had an old one myself, just what I heard. 

[SCgarman]

3 hours ago, SigmundChurchill said:

 

Absolutely.  I third this sentiment.  

Older isn't always better.  If you love the way they taste now.  Smoke them now.

Especially if you like your cigars with a bit of youthful strength, smoke them young. Many of my aged cigars have lost a bit of "oomph", and are definitely milder. 

[Ites]

9 minutes ago, SCgarman said:

Especially if you like your cigars with a bit of youthful strength, smoke them young. Many of my aged cigars have lost a bit of "oomph", and are definitely milder. 

This is also my understanding. I've even considered stocking a few of the marca I find too full/bold for my taste and let them sit for a few years and let them lose some of the "oomph" that I find too much. For example I" may actually like Partagas and bolivar 5-10 years down the road" kind of thinking. Party shorts excluded, they are lovely just the way they are! 

[SCgarman]

1 hour ago, Ites said:

This is also my understanding. I've even considered stocking a few of the marca I find too full/bold for my taste and let them sit for a few years and let them lose some of the "oomph" that I find too much. For example I" may actually like Partagas and bolivar 5-10 years down the road" kind of thinking. Party shorts excluded, they are lovely just the way they are! 

Party shorts are a different cigar with 10 years of age on them. Very smooth, refined. When the box was young at one year of box age, very in your face strong like a Nicaraguan ligero bomb. The shorts are much more enjoyable now, FWIW. 

[rcarlson]

Aging is incredibly overrated, IMO.  Many improve dramatically, many decline.  Most just "change" but not necessarily for the better.  We are collectors at heart, and I think we have a tendency to project improvement over time because it signifies personal discipline and scarcity.  Better?  Not necessarily, and the law of diminishing returns always applies.  Smoke 'em when they're tasting good.  They're not so  "special" you need to gamble on some cosmic experience late.   I've got some '21 Connie 1's that couldn't get better.  Just incredible.  I'd be a fool to think there's some promised land years from now.  And if there is, so what?  I can live with it.  They're killing it right now.         

[El Presidente]

13 minutes ago, rcarlson said:

  I've got some '21 Connie 1's that couldn't get better.  Just incredible.  I'd be a fool to think there's some promised land years from now.  And if there is, so what?  I can live with it.  They're killing it right now.         

Bingo, 

Say you have a box of Connie 1's that are on average smoking 93/94 points?

What are you waiting for....95?  

I have Punch Royal Seleccion Number 11's from 03 that have fallen off a cliff. They won't be the first and they won't be the last.  I have Punch Royal Seleccion number 11's from  1996 that are still superb.  

You need to taste your cigars progressivley to undertand where they are at. Tasting is not a spreadsheet exercise 

[Bijan]

54 minutes ago, El Presidente said:

You need to taste your cigars progressivley to undertand where they are at. Tasting is not a spreadsheet exercise 

Spreadsheeting the scores will help you chart 📉📈 the progress. But even I don't have the strength for that these days.

[Kitchen]

I know with wine, it comes down to where it started from.  Flavors always lessen with time, and stronger flavors at a faster rate.  So a full bodied Petit Syrah is going to a couple of very dominant flavors, but  after decade, those will have decreased where the secondary flavors are now noticeable.  Sp 10 to 12 years is ideal.  

However, with a Sauvignon Blanc (that's right Ken, I'm thinking of you), the wine started out as light bodied, so all of the flavors will dissapate after a couple of years.  That is why you drink Sauv Blancs young.  

Now, even with the fullest bodied red, after 18 years, the flavors will really dwindle, but that is when the tannins break down, providing more radically different flavors.  So a full bodied red may taste great at year 12, bland at year 18, and flavorfully yet totally different at year 24.  Of course the wine needs to have the legs to to make this far, otherwise you will have a pretty bland wine.  

On top of that, controlling oxygen exposure become paramount.  For wine, this mean keeping a consistent temp, keeping the air in the bottle head space from expanding and contracting, pushing air in and out of the bottle.  

With cigars, I base my aging theories on the same premises as with wine.  The only difference is with oxygen.  I keep boxes I age full in somewhat air tight containers.  Some air movement is good, which is why I do not go the cryo vac route.  

[Mark12]

I had a box of Monte 2 that I bought in Spain on vacation in 2001. Storage conditions were always perfect. The flavor began to drop off at about 7-8 years and was basically gone after 15. I smoked one at 20 years… draw was still great, but didn’t taste like anything. I was disappointed, but it was a lesson worth learning. Now, my rule of thumb is start them at 2 years and finish the box by 6 years of age. I am sure everyone has a different opinion on this.

[cmbarton]

I read the title of this thread all wrong.  I came here to say, "Lots.  Lack of energy, joint pain, poor eyesight and worst of all ... decreased libido."

[Fugu]

42 minutes ago, cmbarton said:

I read the title of this thread all wrong.  I came here to say, "Lots.  Lack of energy, joint pain, poor eyesight and worst of all ... decreased libido."

You beat me to it. And no, won’t disclose details 😅.

[Fugu]

It all mostly depends on storage. That said, personally I haven’t - so far - observed a cigar go truly flat on me. But that holds only for new boxes that have been purchased at release by myself, that is, where I got their full track record. With (the few) vintage/aged purchases I did, I got mixed experience. Which is mostly more testament to subpar storage history than anything else I guess. But there are cigars / blends / vintages that are less ideal for aging, for sure.

And true - if you like a cigar now, by all means smoke it now. Don’t count me in the camp of „aging makes a cigar better“. A cigar MIGHT be better, but it WILL be different. But often, it is about preserving that great experience. Preserving great vintages that one owns (you don’t always want to plough through a single box 🙄. In particular if there’s more „good“ to select from). Why that „smoke it now“-suggestion isn’t always what you are looking for.

Many quality blends gain a lot by maturing (think for instance LGC, Party 898, Party SdConnaisseur, des Dieux, du Dep, HU Noëllas, Boli CE, PC, good RyJ blends such as the Ex4, the Churchills, as well as the Cedro-line, just to mention a milder blend that matures brilliantly). But that is all personal taste preference to a certain extent.

if storage conditions are less than ideal - just be careful. And thoroughly select cigars for aging to begin with.

And finally, let’s face it, much of it is pure luck of the draw, and you’ll only know at hindsight.

[MrBirdman]

Montecristo in general doesn’t age terribly well in my experience, though it does vary within the line and of course even the exceptional stick in a given box. Monte 1 for instance don’t gain much to my palate beyond about 2-3 years, and at 7-8 tend to get too bland. My 2015 box of PSP Monte 3, for instance, are still enjoyable but I am smoking them down now as their flavor has started to wane over the past two years. 

To be clear, I wouldn’t say any of these were truly “dead” - just that they reach a point where further age is eroding their flavor rather than enhancing. 

In general I feel cigars that truly continue to improve past, say, 6-8 years are the exception - but that’s to my palate, which as you might infer leans towards flavor intensity over smoothness/refinement. No doubt there are some who feel most cigars don’t really get good until that age!

[Chas.Alpha]

On 8/14/2022 at 8:52 AM, BrightonCorgi said:

Monte A's start to fade off after 15-20 years.  Still a fun smoke, but it's much more delicate flavor.  Plenty of other ones will be mentioned I bet too.

I bought a 5 pack of A's a couple of years ago with the promise that I wouldn't smoke one until The Vikings win the Super Bowl. Thus, your information is quite valuable! 😀

[BrightonCorgi]

1 hour ago, Chas.Alpha said:

I bought a 5 pack of A's a couple of years ago with the promise that I wouldn't smoke one until The Vikings win the Super Bowl. Thus, your information is quite valuable! 😀

How just making the 2nd round of play-off's for the first one?