The growers and cigar entrepreneurs of the Connecticut River Valley are the standard-bearers of the Constitution State's century-old tobacco tradition.

"How would you like to be the first to try the 2004 crop?" Daniel Nuņez asks enticingly as he holds up a silky, golden tobacco leaf. I offer up the cigar I'm smoking - a Temple Hall Robusto from Daniel's office humidor - and watch as he wraps a remnant of the supple tobacco around the outside of the half-smoked cigar. I replace the now-double-wrapped Robusto in my mouth and the clean, creamy, sweetly tinged nuances of the leaf have decidedly changed the flavor profile. I take a deep draw and realize that those cigar smokers who are awaiting the next release of Macanudo Gold Label - the ultimate destination for this, the first priming of the 2004 Connecticut shade crop - are surely not to be disappointed.

It is harvest time in the Connecticut River Valley, and here in the sleepy community of Granby, the activity at Farm No. 3 - owned and operated by Culbro Corporation, the tobacco growing subsidiary of General Cigar Holdings, Inc. - is proceeding apace. Nuņez, who oversees General's tobacco operations in the Dominican Republic and Honduras as well as in the States, is here for the next few weeks to supervise the harvest, and ensure that the Connecticut shade, Connecticut broadleaf, and Connecticut Havana seed are all of optimum quality.

As many cigar mavens know, this 75-odd-mile stretch of Valley, just a short drive from Hartford and the Massachusetts border, is the only region in the United States that produces world-class premium cigar tobacco. Astonishingly, most of it is wrapper tobacco - the most difficult to grow. While tropical climates such as the Dominican Republic have had notorious trouble in their attempts to grow wrapper, Connecticut has become renowned worldwide for its two signature varieties: Connecticut shade, the golden-brown, mild-and-sweet variety grown under cheesecloth tents; and Connecticut broadleaf, the thick, dark, gritty leaf grown in the sun. Recently, an older variation has come back into the spotlight as well: sun-grown Connecticut Havana seed, an oily, flavorful wrapper that had been largely replaced by the less expensive, sturdier broadleaf.

Though accounts differ as to what type of seed was first introduced here, Nuņez maintains that the first wrapper tobacco grown under shade in Connecticut dates to about 1906, with Indonesian Sumatra seeds. "They first tried to replicate the microclimate of Sumatra, which is always cloudy," Nuņez posits. Up until that point, the tobacco was sun-grown, as broadleaf and Havana seed still are today.

General Cigar's Daniel Nuņez and his staff inspect the wrappers on finished cigars.

As we drive from the curing barn to the fields, Nuņez fills me in on the scope of General's shade operation. "We estimate that there are about 1,200 to 1,300 acres in the Valley devoted to growing tobacco," he reveals, "and 260 of them are exclusively [for General Cigar]. Connecticut shade has become the most sophisticated, and the cleanest, of all wrappers that are sold."

The workers at Culbro take great care to ensure that cleanliness. The morning sun is breaking through some threatening gray clouds as we approach a row of tobacco plants, jutting majestically from the sandy soil, some of them nearly poking through the shade tent. A squadron of workers carefully picks the ripe green leaves from the stalks, dropping the leaves gingerly onto a moving carpet to avoid contact with the ground. One worker is even getting some aerobic exercise as he pedals the bicycle-like device that pulls in the mat of fresh leaves, which are then placed into baskets and spirited away to the sheds for curing and fermentation.

The care and precision with which the tobacco is handled may account for the impressive percentage of the crop that becomes premium cigar wrapper - according to Nuņez, usually about 75 to 80 percent of the yield. "It's the highest percentage of any shade grower, worldwide," he states proudly. "Growing tobacco in Connecticut is labor-intensive and labor here is very expensive. If you only get 50 percent out of it, you'll never make a profit. The land is more expensive than in the Dominican Republic by a factor of 10 to 1. Everything in the U.S. is more expensive. Fortunately, our workers are very good."

Connecticut shade and broadleaf tobacco is cured in temperature-controlled sheds.

While today it is chiefly migrant workers tending the tobacco fields of Connecticut, many native locals have also taken part in the tradition. At least one former "picker" for Culbro has parlayed his youthful experiences into a business. Michael Tarnowicz founded Battleground Seegar in nearby Hazardville in 1995 after retiring as a purchasing manager for United Technologies. For Tarnowicz it was a return to family tradition. "My father used to put me on a bus at 6:00 in the morning up to Bloomfield where I used to pick shade tobacco," he recalls. "Back then, everybody around here was involved in tobacco. We grew up surrounded by it." He opened a store, Connecticut Valley Tobacconist, in 1995, and introduced his first cigar blend, Old Powder Keg, soon afterward. A Civil War and antiques buff, Tarnowicz intended the cigar (made in Nicaragua with Nicaraguan and Honduran tobaccos) as a tribute to the town's namesake, Colonel Augustus Hazard, who produced over half the gunpowder used in the Civil War.

Meeting with some success with the "OPK," Tarnowicz decided to expand the line, enlisting his friend, artist Ken Hendrickson, to create the packaging for an entire line of Civil War-themed cigars. The Battleground series, divided into "North" and "South" with each frontmark named for a historical figure, is manufactured by Matasa's Manuel Quesada in the Dominican Republic, and available in three wrappers: Mild (Connecticut shade), Medium (Cameroon), and Full-bodied (Brazilian maduro). With his company's dedication to honoring American history and Connecticut tobacco culture, Tarnowicz is determined to incorporate more of the local crop into his blends. To this end, he has entered a deal with a local grower to produce "a modest crop" of broadleaf for Battleground's exclusive use. The Battleground maduro wrapper will soon switch to Connecticut broadleaf, and plans for a new blend using broadleaf wrapper are well underway. The Colonel, one surmises, would be proud.

In Granby, we venture into an unpicked row, Nuņez pointing out the uniform size of the plants, and I take the opportunity to handle one of the leaves. The gummy, sticky film on the outside indicates that the leaf is ready to be harvested. "It's supposed to be sticky when you touch it," Nuņez confirms. "It's important to process the tobacco properly. When it doesn't have that [stickiness] we call the tobacco flat, like paper." He breaks the leaf off the stem with a crisp snap. "When you hear that, it means it's ready. Two days ago, you wouldn't have heard that." He smiles, adding, "It's a sweet sound."

I accompany Nuņez to one more shed where leaves from the second priming are hanging. It's dark, warm, and humid inside, the only illumination provided by the flames from small burners lined up on the floor to slowly heat-dry the leaves. The smell here is thick with fresh tobacco. The leaves themselves are bigger (because the second priming, harvested a few weeks after the first and further up the stalk, receives more nutrients) and they display a wild variation of color in mid-curing, from dark green to lime green to yellow to brown, on the way to the goldenrod hue of fully-prepared Connecticut shade. Aside from a few small spots and holes, the leaves seem incredibly pristine, and I'm reminded of recent years' onslaughts of the tobacco disease blue mold. Like a baseball pitcher in the 6th inning of a no-hitter, Nuņez has decided it is best to not even mention his good fortune for fear of jinxing it.

"It's been so clean this year, we don't even talk about it," he says. "We've been struggling since 1998, but this year has been a blessing."

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