Oliva Debuting Perfecto Made With Tobaccos From Exceptional Growing Years

[JohnS]

I originally read these articles and immediately wondered if Oliva were shortchanging us? But no, extra rain has brought a better quality harvest of crop and thus the upcoming release of the Oliva Serie V Melanio Edición Año 2026 Perfecto Round...

Oliva Debuting Perfecto Made With Tobaccos From Exceptional Growing Years

Oliva Serie V Melanio Edición Año 2026 Coming This Fall

Apr 9, 2026 - By David Savona

Photos/Oliva Cigar Co.

Oliva Cigar Co. has just announced that it’s preparing a new figurado made with tobaccos from particularly promising growing years in Nicaragua’s Jalapa Valley: The Oliva Serie V Melanio Edición Año 2026 Perfecto Round. While they will be shown at the PCA show, which begins next weekend in New Orleans, the cigars aren’t expected to ship for months, sometime in the fall.

Oliva is comparing these cigars to “gran crus,” the wine industry term that translates to “great growth.” The cigars are made with filler and binder tobacco from the Jalapa Valley of Nicaragua, where Oliva has fields. The region experienced an atypical weather pattern in 2023 and 2024, a time that Oliva says was particularly wonderful, with reduced rainfall and historically high temperatures. Oliva called the conditions ideal for its tobacco. The Perfecto's Sumatra-seed wrapper was grown in Ecuador.

“These special conditions cannot be man-made, they can only be handed down by nature,” says Fred Vandermarliere, owner and CEO of Oliva. “And so, with every aficionado enjoying this remarkable cigar, we pay homage to that powerful bond between the forces of nature and the skills of the craft.”

Full Article: https://www.cigaraficionado.com/article/oliva-debuting-perfecto-made-with-tobaccos-from-exceptional-growing-years

[JohnS]

Oliva Serie V Melanio Edición Año 2026 Perfecto Coming This Fall

April 8, 2026 - Charlie Minato

A particularly rainy harvest has produced tobacco that Oliva Cigar Co. says is worthy of being labeled as a Grand Cru release.

Those tobaccos are going into the new Oliva Serie V Melanio Edición Año 2026 Perfecto, a uniquely-shaped 5 3/8 x 54 perfecto. If the cigar looks familiar, it’s because you are probably thinking of the Oliva Serie V 135th Anniversary Edición Limitada. While the two cigars share some of the same traits, the new Melanio is not the same vitola; most notably, the taper at the top of the cigars is quite different.

Blend-wise, the Melanio uses an Ecuadorian Sumatra-seed wrapper over a blend of Nicaraguan tobaccos from the Jalapa Valley. The company says that a particularly rainy and warm growing season for the 2023-2024 crop produced the Nicaraguan tobaccos used for this release, which the company says are worthy of being considered a Grand Cru. That’s a term from the wine world, used by French authorities to describe a vineyard, though the term also makes it onto wine labels, used to promote the idea that a particular label is the best of the best. Typically, the Melanio line is offered in box-pressed vitolas but this cigar is round.

Oliva will show off the Serie V Melanio Edición Año 2026 Perfecto at next week’s 2026 PCA Convention & Trade Show in New Orleans. However, it is not expected to ship until the fall.

Full Article: https://halfwheel.com/oliva-serie-v-melanio-edicion-ano-2026-perfecto/466473/

[Joeyjojo]

Sounds like an interesting concept. 

I do like the occasional Serie V, so if the prices aren't too out of order I might try a single or two. 

[SirVantes]

15 hours ago, JohnS said:

The region experienced an atypical weather pattern in 2023 and 2024, a time that Oliva says was particularly wonderful, with reduced rainfall and historically high temperatures.

 

15 hours ago, JohnS said:

The company says that a particularly rainy and warm growing season for the 2023-2024 crop produced the Nicaraguan tobaccos used for this release,

 

[JohnS]

@SirVantes, sometimes with the marketing surrounding these releases, you need to employ Orwellian-type 'doublethink', right? You know, 2+2=5? 😂

[SirVantes]

27 minutes ago, JohnS said:

@SirVantes, sometimes with the marketing surrounding these releases, you need to employ Orwellian-type 'doublethink', right? You know, 2+2=5? 😂

No, I get it, it's like winemaker talk. Low rainfall - "vine stress, low yield, great concentration - once-in-a-century vintage!". High rainfall - "fantastic yield, rigorous selection, hedonistic and powerful - once-in-a-century vintage!"

Read in isolation, either of statements attributed to Oliva sounds plausible, and I would have swallowed it without a second thought. My problem is a penchant for the second thought.