 
Pax Dominicana: POWER SURGE By Mark Bernardo With bolder blends and an increasing amount of home-grown wrapper leaf, the Dominican Republic is shaking off its medium-bodied perceptions and tackling the growing market for stronger, full-bodied cigars.
For those of us old enough to remember them, the 1970s were indisputably an era of change - and not just here in the States. While Americans witnessed a sobering end to a controversial war and the spectacular fall of a tainted presidency, wore bell-bottoms, and danced the Hustle, Angel Daniel Nuñez, and men like him, were growing the first wrapper leaf tobacco in the Dominican Republic. It was an experiment whose full impact would not be felt for years to come, but which would usher in a new identity for the island nation as one of the world’s premier suppliers of fine cigars.
Today, Nuñez is an executive vice president for General Cigar Company, overseeing all tobacco farming operations, and with last year’s release of the new Ramon Allones - General’s first premium cigar with Dominican-grown wrapper - he is returning to trails he blazed in the 1970s.
Nuñez and a host of his contemporaries - some older and well-established, some younger and full of new ideas - are now running roughshod over two long-held misconceptions: one, that the Dominican Republic is incapable of growing great wrapper; and two, that Dominican cigars are by nature milder than their counterparts from Cuba, Nicaragua, and Honduras.
THE OLD GUARD
The story of Dominican cigars goes back a bit further than the ‘70s - a full 100 years, in fact. The oldest Dominican cigar producer, La Aurora, is nestled in a massive, estate-like complex outside of Santiago, the nerve center of Dominican cigar making. The company celebrates its centennial in 2003, with the release of a limited-edition anniversary cigar. The specifics of which are still being kept a closely guarded secret by Guillermo Leon, current proprietor of the brand and head of Group Leon Jimenes - which also owns the Dominican beer Presidente, and distributes Marlboro, Tang, and other products in the D.R. “It’s going to be very limited. It’s going to have good, aged tobacco. It will be in numbered boxes. Frankly, it’s going to be a hit,” he states, with pardonable pride. And yes, this one will be a cigar produced with all Dominican tobacco, including the wrapper that has been set aside specifically for the centennial release. “You can achieve very good blends with 100% Dominican tobacco,” Leon says.
Back in 1903, Leon’s grandfather was one of the first to recognize the potential of the D.R. as a cigar producer - if not yet as an exporter of them. La Aurora was created chiefly for the domestic market, and remains ubiquitous throughout the D.R. The cigars were not exported until 1945, and not in large amounts to this country until the beginning of the cigar boom. Leon admits that, like many manufacturers, the quality of his products may have been undermined by the scarcity of good tobacco available. “We try to maintain our quality always,” he states, “but sometimes [back then] you had to acquire tobacco less than your standard. The demand here was very high at the time. Some people were buying cigars just to sell them in the U.S. And everyone was having problems with labor. We trained 300 rollers here, and a lot of them left because they could make more money elsewhere.”
Nevertheless, as befits a century-old company that has grown into a virtual empire, La Aurora has weathered the storms and, with the gorgeously packaged (and fuller-bodied) Preferido Maduros, along with the Leon Jimenes brand, and the upcoming anniversary blend, may be sailing into a bright new day indeed - appropriate enough for a cigar whose name means “the sunrise.”
A gleaming Davidoff logo on the gates greeted me as I pulled in to the factory to speak to Kelner in his sun-drenched office. Kelner is one of the Dominican cigar industry’s elder statesmen, commanding respect from his peers, as well as advice and expertise from many a would-be client. Right now, in addition to Davidoff’s sizeable production, Kelner’s factory makes the private label Occidental brands for Alec Bradley. His pride and joy, like that of many of the cigar makers I spoke to, seems to be his first Dominican puro: Davidoff’s new and very limited Capa Dominicana. “We started growing the wrapper for the Capa Dominicana in 1996,” Kelner reports. “This year we’re growing more, so we will have enough for a whole line, rather than a limited edition.” And does Kelner see home-grown wrapper as the wave of the D.R.’s future? “I think everybody is working in that direction ... to use only Dominican wrapper. I believe this country needs that, because there is so much competition from other nations who grow it.”
The Capa Dominicana, like the Millennium Blend before it, is an uncharacteristically strong cigar for Davidoff, a brand whose post-Cuban incarnation has been characterized by a milder/medium-bodied flavor profile. And another Davidoff product, The Griffin’s, has introduced a Fuerte (“strong”) line, as well. I ask Kelner if the American market seems to be looking nowadays for stronger cigars. “The American market looks for new cigars,” he clarifies. “It’s not a completely mature market, and the boom increased the number of smokers. In Europe it’s more traditional; people know what they like and look for it. In the States, you need to continue to try new things. Our concept is a strong, but balanced cigar.”
Nevertheless, MATASA’s newer releases have begun to cater to the former market segment, with the Fonseca Serie F (for Fuerte), described by Quesada as “strong but not overpowering,” and the aforementioned new Cubitas. Through it all, the existing Fonseca line, known for its mellower character, continues to be the flagship.
Quesada’s perfect English - the benefit of an English-teacher mother - would not immediately reveal his Cuban heritage. The tobacco aging in one of his warehouses, however, is another matter: the bales are sealed in tercio bark, from tropical palm trees - a more expensive and time-consuming alternative to the plastic, burlap, and cardboard used by many other factories, and a traditional Cuban-style process that Quesada adheres to religiously. “When you make the bale completely out of this bark, it becomes a sealed container,” he explains, as a factory worker opens a bale to reveal the aromatic leaves within. “There’s a certain amount of filtration within the bale, so there’s a dryness that enters in. In the tercio, that moisture takes a much longer time to be lost. None of the aromas are lost; everything stays and recirculates throughout the bale.” The intended result is a cigar that displays more of its natural flavor ... and that, to Quesada, is much more important than knocking a smoker’s socks off.
La Romana is a four-to-six-hour drive from Santiago, depending on whom you ask, and on the condition of the D.R.’s notorious roads and traffic patterns. Despite the distance, Jose Seijas, the man in charge there, is a close contemporary of Quesada, Kelner, and the other veterans. He has worked his entire career with Altadis, starting in the Canary Islands and moving to the D.R. in 1980. Seijas also sees more exciting evolutions of both his venerable company and his adopted homeland. “I think the poor quality of the many fly-by-night operators tarnished the image of Dominican cigars during the boom,” he states, “but I believe the quality has improved considerably since then. We are constantly coming up with new blends, line extensions, new brands. The rate of innovation in our company is quite high, and this direction will continue in the years to come.”
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Another cigar maker that knows a bit about celebrating anniversaries in style is Davidoff: their Avo Signature Series, commemorating the 75th birthday of the brand’s founder, and the Davidoff Millennium Blend, celebrating the ever-popular year 2000, were both instant hits. Both came from the well-appointed Dominican factory of Hendrik Kelner, the company’s cigarmaking guru.