DESCRIPTION: I first featured the Di Fazio Maduro in Episode 239 Sunday, September 19, 2010. These cigars have been resting in the Stogie Fresh humidors for 1 year, 4.4 months and I pulled out a couple more this past week to give them another look.

Di Fazio cigars was founded in 2008 by Carmelo Di Fazio, a television executive who ventured into the cigar industry because of his love of fine cigars. As a boutique cigar manufacturer, Carmelo puts a priority on consistency of the construction and flavor, but more importantly on the consistency of the essence of pleasure. His goal is to instill a consistent experience of flavor and aroma and provide the superior enjoyment associated with smoking a fine cigar.

Currently, Di Fazio has three cigar lines (not counting the Barroco): The Connecticut, the Picoso and the cigar I'm featuring today, the Maduro.

All three cigar lines are produced at the Raices Cubanas Factory in Honduras and their tobaccos come from Honduras, Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic.

The Maduro sports a Nicaraguan wrapper, a Honduran binder and Honduran and Nicaraguan filler. All cigars come in 4 vitolas and come packed in boxes of 24 or 12 cigars. The cigar I'm reviewing is the 5-inch by 60 RG Maduro Double Robusto.

TASTING NOTES: The wrapper on this cigar is drop-dead gorgeous: dark, almost black in color, with good oils and a generous sheen. Be sure to bring plenty of lighter horsepower to the table when you try to light this beast. The 60 ring gauge foot, combined with the moist maduro tobacco will drain your lighter quicker than a toilet flush.

This cigar starts with woody, smoky and dark roast coffee notes. During the first inch or so, this smoke is relatively tame on the palate. A very short finish leaves the flavors to wallow in nuance rather than boldly asserting themselves on the palate. While I would normally appreciate nuanced flavors, I draw the line when they are not backed up by good mouth feel and impact on the palate. That said, part of this issue is possibly related to the ring gauge, which makes the cigar smoke cool and disperses the intensity.

In any case, beyond the 1-inch mark this cigar started to pick up in body and flavor, but the flavors were muddy and indistinct. Basically, the extra age has not helped the flavor and body profile in this cigar.

FINAL THOUGHTS: The Di Fazio Maduro shows a bit more intensity in flavor during the second half, but the flavors lack focus and there is considerable dryness on the palate, which reminds me of wine tannins. Not nearly enough sweetness for a good maduro and, in fact, the cigar has lost whatever sweetness it possessed a year ago, which was not much.

These cigars are pretty good when young, but I wouldn’t consider them for long-term aging. The final verdict on the Di Fazio Maduro is buy and smoke early, but don’t hold.

~Doc