Vitola: Toro- 6” x 52 ring gauge
- MSRP $35
- Purchased at Burns Tobacconist
Background
Recently Davidoff Appointed Merchants were afforded the opportunity to take part in something very special. Well, honestly, I’m not sure they were given a choice. Many of the decisions of what you will carry and what you won’t carry as a shop are taken out of your hands when you sign on to become an Appointed Merchant. There are parts of this latest project that I find admirable and parts I can’t stand.
Last year Davidoff Appointed Merchants and Flagship Stores each received 3 sets of “Master Selection” blends that Eladio Diaz made for various birthdays through the years. So a total of 6 different blends were out there…3 were for Appointed Merchants only, 3 for Flagships. They were expensive but rare and very limited. For this year the Master Selection offering has been expanded to a whopping 15 different blends, none of which are being revealed.
The marketing materials say the differing cigars (numbered 1 through 15) “represent worldly flavors from corners of the globe that are found in unique growing regions in the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Mexico, Peru and the United States.” Then each blend is described by the body and flavors you should expect to experience. In the marketing PDF, it’s in a wheel…in stores each flavor and strength indicator is listed above the slot where the cigars go.
Want to know how to tell what the best sticks are? Good luck. I know someone that is going to work their way through all the blends…I expect he’ll go broke before getting there. I smoked a Number 9 and found it very good…my friend says that the Number 1 is his favorite so far (he’s through about 6 at this point). I am not going to make this a regular series, trying to review all the sticks because it really is just too expensive. If someone wants to donate the cigars for me to do so, contact me and we’ll talk. Realistically, I expect that I’ll review 4 or 5 of these sticks in total over the next 12 months or so. I am going to review based on a single stick…because at this price point there’s just no excuse for any “bad stick in the box” nonsense…every single cigar should be just as good as the one before it or the one after it. I bought this Master Selection Number 1 at Burns Tobacconist.
One final note before I go into the actual review…I know some people at Davidoff read these pages and I mean no offense to you or your company…but seriously, the company has gone a little damn nuts with the volume of very expensive limited editions lately. In the last 12 months, I’ve seen Year of the Dog, at least one of the previous Master Selections, Selección 702 redux, Chef’s Edition 2017, Art Edition 2017, Gusto, LE 2011, Year of the Snake, Paragon, Wagner, Mundano (the store’s part of the Vault program, so we get more than many accounts do), and the 50th Anniversary Diadema. And that’s after passing on the Royal Release and Oro Blanco (thankfully, some items are still optional). With a couple exceptions, everything I just listed is still on the shelf in some quantity…and it’s honestly getting hard to judge what of these cigars is truly something special…to paraphrase The Incredibles, “If everything is special then nothing is special.” OK…editorial part over.
Prelight
The banding is the same as you’ll find on nearly any other Davidoff…simple white label with embossed gold foil proclaiming the company name surrounded by a circle made of gold dots. The writing on the arms of the band here declare it to be a “Limited Edition.” The secondary band here is white with gold text and just reads “Master Blender Selection 1.” Surprisingly there is no printed Eladio Diaz signature on these as with laster year’s Master Selection releases (and several of the Vault releases), but they did print his signature large on the top of each of the 4 cabinet displays that these cigars go in.
The Master Selection 1 had a wrapper leaf that was very even in color and that color was close to that of a milk chocolate bar. It had a decent amount of oiliness to the eye and to the touch and had a strong earthiness with a bit of a cedar aroma, as well. The foot was rich with notes of earth and leather and wet wood.
Normally, I wouldn’t pay attention to what the company tells me to experience in a cigar, but since it is such a big part of the marketing of these, I will share that the Master Selection 1 is supposed to be 3.5 on a 5-scale of “Intensity” and should have “Aroma” (or flavor, I’m guessing) of pepper, wood and cream.
I clipped the head with my Xikar Xi and noted that the cold draw was excellent. I definitely got wood and bell pepper notes on the prelight draw, along with a little hay and something slightly sweet.
Flavor
The first few puffs of the Master Blender Selection 1 were heavy on the wood notes, though not cedar as I would normally expect in cigars. This was more of a dry wood, almost oaky in nature. Natural tobacco and hay were in strong evidence, with just a touch of sweetness that was hard to draw a bead on. The pepper was very subtle and subdued on the palate right at first, and there was only a bit more of it on the nose. The retrohale was very woody and a bit nutty, with the roasted nut notes outpacing the pepper at the moment. Overall, the first few minutes of this cigar were spectacular and very complex…which is what I would expect from the hype.
As I got into the second third, I noted that there was still a lot of woody notes in the mix, along with a good amount of earth and roasted nuts. The body was definitely medium-plus while the flavor was full and complex. Black pepper was a growing burn on the palate while still being mostly absent from the nose. The slightly sweet notes I had picked up earlier faded away.
In the final third, earth and wood notes were pretty even up front, with pepper and nuts playing solid supporting roles.
Construction
As expected the build quality of these is excellent. I had a flawless draw, almost perfectly straight burn line and ash that stayed solid for an inch or more.
Value
For this particular installment in the series, I would say the very high price tag is worth it; I didn’t feel the same about Number 9, although it was very good.
Conclusions
The only flavor component I didn’t really pick up that they had suggested was “cream.” There may have been a bit of a creamy aspect toward the beginning but it was short-lived at best as woody notes came to dominate most of the profile. Earth and pepper came up later and did become somewhat strong in the mix. All-in-all a very flavorful and complex cigar that was enjoyable from beginning to end. I would definitely recommend this as a great entry point into this series; whether you decide to go on from there or not is up to you and your wallet, but there is definitely a flavor profile for almost everyone in the 15 blends released.
By-The-Numbers
Prelight: 2/2
Construction: 2/2
Flavor: 4.5/5
Value: 1/1
Total: 9.5/10
