I love these summer reads. Thanks for another great review series.
By the way I kind of have a theory on your Broadleaf vs Tuxtla experience. I think tobacco is kind of like wine. Obviously it’s only an annual plant so you don’t have years and years of certain leaf quality the way you would with old vines. But you do have terroir and some variety will have an amazing quality in some location. At that point the harvest is not used up right away the way the grapes are, also the seeds will have a huge genome of the parent plant, but I think every time you reseed them the soil will have less and less nutrients that made the original flavor profile and the seeds will loose more and more of the genome profile over time.
That’s why broadleaf was the hottest thing on the market for 4-5 years. Then another variety was all everyone was talking about. Now it’s MEXICAN SAM ANDREAS. Curious what the next big one will be ?
By the way who ever figures out what Padron is doing to keep the consistency will be a winner in the industry. If someone has an organic chemistry background I would be super curious to see 5 Padron Cigars from consecutive years go through a diligent composition analysis. Even Fuente being huge as they are and having their own farms could not keep replicating opus or anejo OR profile
I completed a semester of organic chemistry and was pre-law, does that count?
I agree tobacco is like wine, and just like wine that sometimes some spots just have a magical crop even when elsewhere nearby it was an overall subpar year. I understand why you mention soil nutrients, however, the grape fields don't rotate crops and rarely replace plants and yet the same mythic fields often produce some of the same mythic wines. Similarly while touring CT a farmer said that they don't rotate crops. They don't have fallow seasons. The unique sandy soil of the CT river valley carved and created by a mile high glacier is a terroir that cigar tobacco loves. The roots grow deep quickly to the water line. Interestingly, when you think of most other regions, they are different in that they are all volcanic.
I would argue that great wines are great because of not just the grapes and their terroir but also all the little steps their producers take that are lost on us outsiders as part of their overall winemaking process. I would guess this is what makes Padron so great, plus they were one of the first in Nicaragua and may have some of the best fields as a result.
The crop is step one and it takes a lot of skill and care but Mother Nature can still be a bitch about it like storms. But the curing in the barn is an art just like rickhouse management for fine bourbons, and they can actually leave tobacco for multiple years in the barn--continually gently hydrating and drying the leaves. And fermentation is even more so an art that to me is the most black box part of the work. And then of course the blender and their skillset. And the whole time the very delicate leaves can be damaged.
If you tried the limited edition Punch Box Press series from a few years ago, the best stick by far was the one that featured the Brazilian Mata Fina wrapper. My local cigar bar bought several of them all, and I personally smoked probably 60+% of the Mata Fina boxes over the course of a month. It wouldn't surprise me if at some point it becomes the next fad. They had a fantastic unique flavor profile. However, I've tried other brands with Mata Fina and not found them to be nearly as desirable, so who knows?
I love craft beer, but just as impressive is the ability of Budweiser or Coors or the big brewers of Belgium or Germany to continually replicate the same product or similarly the consistency in the base blends of bourbons or the consistency of certain distillersn to continuously release amazing single barrel products without manipulation. As you said, and to me too, that's the magic of Padron.
