DESCRIPTION: This week’s featured cigar is a relative newcomer on the scene and the cigar company that produces it is unique in many respects. The Buena Vista Reserva and Edicion Limitadas were released in July at the annual trade show in Las Vegas and began shipping the following week.

The cigars are currently available in about 75 shops throughout the U.S. This year the Company will produce around 500,000 of each of the 2 blends, with 400,000 being available in the U.S., and the remainder being committed to Distributors in several European countries.

The company started by planting 100% first generation Cuban seeds in what they considered to be the one place on earth that replicates the famous Pinar del Rio tobacco-growing region of Cuba. Their agricultural research resulted in them planting seeds in a small valley located in Ecuador, where the soil content, the average daily temperatures, and the atmospheric conditions combined to deliver a tobacco leaf that they feel comes extremely close to Cuban grown tobacco.

The Buena Vista cigar factory is located in the heart of Cancún, Mexico. And, of the more than 60 cigar rollers employed by the company, all are Cuban citizens. Not only are all the rollers Cuban, but all factory managers and quality control specialists are also Cubans.

Buena Vista Reserva cigars have a Dominican and Ecuadorian filler blend, an Ecuadorian binder and a silky smooth Ecuadorian wrapper. They come in nine different vitolas. This week’s featured Reserva is the 6.5-inch by 54 ring Toro Grande.

The wrapper on this stick is gorgeous, it exudes a nice amount of natural oils and the leaf possesses a pungent aroma of wet hay and raw nuts. The cigars themselves are quite lumpy and bumpy and display a lack of symmetry.

TASTING NOTES: At the very beginning, the Buena Vista Reserva displays some grassy notes and then turns toward earthiness and woody flavors. The retrohale adds a bit of spice to the equation.

During the first third, one of my samples exhibited a cavernous tunnel that forced me to touch up the cigar with my lighter. However, the burn righted itself and the burn line became razor sharp and dead even. The draw was smooth with a little more resistance than I would normally like to see. The ash was firm and allowed me to tap off in 1-inch chunks.

FINAL THOUGHTS: The Buena Vista Reserva is an attractive cigar with an easy smoking profile. It displays notes of grass, wood, some raw nuttiness and a touch of tobacco sweetness on the finish. Minor tunnel in the first sample notwithstanding, the cigar proved to be well constructed with a draw and burn that was excellent. The Reserva Sublime is medium-full in body and flavor and a solid medium in strength.

Because of its easy-going body and flavor profile, this cigar should appeal to a wide range of cigar smokers. It will likely be easily approachable to most serious cigar smokers and most newbies should be able to hang in there as well.

The only drawback for some may be the price. Cigar collector’s who value the packaging along with the smoke-ability of the cigar, should find these cigars enticing. For the general cigar smoking population, I would like to see these cigars sold in bundles so that both the consumer and retailer can resupply their stores without paying the overhead of the gorgeous, but pricey packaging.

~Doc