Cigar Aficionado

Once the brunch sponsored by Oliva Cigars and Flecha Azul Tequila on Saturday morning concluded, it was time for the Big Smoke Las Vegas seminars to begin. As plates were cleared away, guests filed down the hallway of the Paris Hotel in Las Vegas to find their seats in the adjacent ballroom. of the Cigar Aficionado staff were in position to hand out Boveda bags containing a whopping nine cigars to be enjoyed throughout the seminars, including the top three cigars of 2023 from Cigar Aficionado’s annual Top 25 list.

Executive editor David Savona took the stage to greet a crowd of more than 600 cigar fans who traveled from all four corners of the globe to not only smoke a large selection of fine cigars, but also hear leading names in the cigar industry speak about their craft and what it means to be a cigarmaker. 

The first smoke to be introduced after brunch was the Padrón Serie 1926 No. 48 Maduro (96 points), the No. 2 Cigar of 2023. Onstage was contributing editor Gordon Mott and Jorge Padrón, owner of Padrón Cigars Inc. Mott explained to the crowd that the reason for not starting with the No. 3 Cigar was because it was ed out during brunch. “So, we wanted to put a little bit of space between it and when it comes back,” he said.

Mott told the audience that since Cigar Aficionado first started doing a Top 25 list in 2004, a Padrón cigar has made an appearance every year, with a record of four Padróns taking the top spot.

During the seminar, the two reminisced about Jorge’s father, José Orlando, who ed away in 2017. The subjects ranged from the elder Padrón’s famous bemusement with Cigar Aficionado tasting note descriptors, to his gruff mentoring style, as well as the company’s struggles in the early days of building the business.

With family and legacy going hand in hand, Padrón was reflective of the next generation and the future of his company.

“I always tell my kids that the most important thing is to check your ego at the door . . . My dad was a revolutionary in this business, he’s an icon, someone who was a trailblazer and the types of things that he did and how he thought, it’s very hard to follow in those footsteps,” Padrón said. “But you have to understand my goal is not to outdo what he did. My goal is to continue along that path and to maintain what we have and grow.”

Mott then called to the stage Jorge’s son, Jorge Luís, and his two nephews Alfonso and Andrés. The three young men stood behind the seated Padrón and the audience laughed when Mott joked that, in the spirit of José Orlando, he wouldn’t let them talk.

The Padróns exited the stage for the next seminar—Smoke Like a Cigarmaker. Once that wrapped up, managing editor Gregory Mottola came onstage to introduce the No. 3 cigar of 2023, the Oliva Serie V Melanio Toro (96 points). ing him was José Oliva, company adviser and chairman of the board for Oliva Cigar Co., and company CEO Cory Bappert. 

“First let me just point out that—I was commenting to Cory about the room—that I didn’t think that there could be more smoke and then Tim asked us to smoke two cigars at once,” Oliva joked, referring to the previous seminar and eliciting laughter.

Mottola told the audience how Oliva first came to Cigar Aficionado’s attention in 2005 with the Serie O, then the stronger Serie V line in 2007 and the Melanio in 2012. He asked Oliva what led to the genesis of the Serie V and what the industry had been missing at that point.

“The cigar business is in a constant state of evolution,” Oliva explained, citing how the market once was dominated by milder, Dominican cigars before the trend moved toward stronger smokes. Oliva wanted to make something after Serie O “that really brought forth the entire complexity of Nicaraguan tobacco . . . but to do it as smooth as we could.” 

The result was the Serie V line (the V stands for “vigoroso,” or “strong” in Spanish), which would become the No. 4 Cigar of 2007. Mottola then asked Oliva to explain how the Melanio, which is an offshoot of the original Serie V, differs.

According to Oliva, Melanio is smoother, principally due to its different lower-priming Ecuador Sumatra wrapper which replaced the higher-priming Habano leaf that covers Serie V. In regards to the cigar’s interior, Oliva did not go into specifics but he did reveal that the Nicaraguan tobaccos hailed from some different regions of Nicaragua as well, including some volcanic regions closer to the Honduran border. These tobaccos are grown in smaller quantities, hence why Melanio has a more limited production.

Mottola then turned to Bappert asking him about the challenges of maintaining quality despite Oliva’s recent expansion in Nicaragua. Bappert, who started with the company in 2006, explained, “It’s a tremendous challenge every year to make sure we get a good harvest in . . . not overproduce, keep the quality in control. But having our own farms and whatnot is an easy way to do so because we are able to control it—we know where the tobacco comes from.”

When Mottola noted how Oliva doesn’t seem pressured to constantly launch new releases, Oliva responded that in many markets, such as the automobile industry, the rush to push new product can lead a company to overexert themselves. “Cigars are timeless in a lot of ways,” he offered. “Our view of it has always been to take our time developing a product and then really leaving that product out there to do its own work and get out through the industry . . . not everything needs a constant improvement.”

Following the conclusion of Oliva’s presentation and the subsequent $100-Plus-Cigars seminar, it was time to discuss the 2023 Cigar of the Year: the Fuente Fuente OpusX Reserva d’Chateau (97 points). Savona and Mott returned to the stage with Carlos “Carlito” Fuente Jr. seated between them. 

Fuente was clearly emotional when he opened by thanking the audience for all of their love and . “It’s an experience that I will take with me through my last moment on earth,” he said.

The cigarmaker spoke ionately and eloquently, describing OpusX as “a Cinderella story: something that was not supposed to happen,” and believed that the entire success of producing OpusX at all was God’s will. He elaborated by first describing the derision he faced from others regarding his outlandish scheme for growing wrapper leaf in the Dominican Republic (it was nearly unheard of and remains uncommon to this day), but then went in depth describing the severe poverty and isolation of the area in Bonao where he started his wrapper farm. By his , children as young as six or seven years old were clamoring for jobs. When he asked why they weren’t in school, he was told by their parents, “’[I]f my children don’t work, they don’t eat that day.’”

In response to this, Fuente partnered with the Newman family to start a classroom. “I know I’m here to speak about a cigar, but it’s not about cigars. It’s about the people. And through this cigar brought awareness.” Today, the Cigar Family Charitable Foundation consists of a 26-acre complex with primary and secondary schools, a health center, a technical school and an academy of arts is coming in December. The schools, Fuente told the audience, have produced doctors, nurses, entrepreneurs and more—many of whom have returned and revitalized the community. Where once stood shacks made of palm fronds and other unstable materials now stand small houses made of cinderblocks and rebar with hurricane windows.

“It’s not the work of a family who made this cigar, it’s God who brought us to this community to make a difference and it wouldn’t have been possible without the of all the cigar lovers in this world,” he said.

As the uproarious applause died down, a moved Savona decided to flip the script a bit and, instead of a more structured , encouraged the crowd to ask Fuente questions.

One member of the audience asked what Fuente wanted his legacy to be. After a ponderous pause, he answered: “That I don’t sell cigars: I give love to others and my greatest hope is the perseverance of what I consider to be the most beautiful industry with the most beautiful community in the world. . . And my legacy should be the next generation. Not what came before me, but the future.” 

The cigarmaker then called his son, Carlos Arturo Fuente III, to him on stage, who sat next to his father through the remainder of the seminar.

Asked what it was like working with his son, with tears of pride in his eyes, the cigarmaker answered, “It’s a continuation of, I guess, what my grandfather felt with his father, what my father felt with his father. It’s a continuation of a relationship and a love I have for my father. It’s the greatest thing in the world.”

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