Cigar Review: Señorial by Jose Blanco

• Vitola: Corona Gorda No. 5
• 5.5” x 46 ring gauge
• Price $7.49
• Purchased at Burns Tobacconist

Background

The most knowledgeable person I’ve ever met in the cigar industry is the inestimable Jose Blanco. I first met him about 5 years ago during a trip to the Dominican Republic when he was working for La Aurora. I later caught up with him about 2 years ago when he was in Nicaragua working with Joya de Nicaragua. And in the past year I’ve had a couple opportunities to converse with him face-to-face at Burns Tobacconist: first Downtown when he did an event and just recently at East when he dropped in on the way through just to say, “Hi!”

It’s been interesting to watch his journey through the industry in the past few years and to see where he has landed after over four decades in the business. He sums it up pretty well on his company’s website:

My devotion to tobacco, my persistent hunt for further knowledge and my passion for blending, together with my family-history and rich tobaccos, bring you Señorial Cigars.

Jose and his wife, Emma Viktorsson, founded Las Cumbres Tabaco in 2014 as a vehicle for Jose’s projects. They have kept pretty much all aspects of the production in the family, with leaf and assembly provided by his cousin, Jochi Blanco, and Tabacalera Palma and designs provided by Emma.

Señorial is available in 5 vitolas and uses Dominican Piloto Cubano and Corojo filler leaves, a binder from Estelí, Nicaragua, and an Ecuadorian Habano wrapper. After rolling, these cigars are aged for 90 days before packaging and shipping. I’ve smoked a few Señorials since it was introduced, although I can’t remember if I’ve had this vitola before.

Prelight

Packaging and banding for Señorial is nice, with a beautiful painting as a backdrop and gilded accents that act as a sort of frame for the painting. On the back of the band, the appearance of deep ridge in the oil paint is so start it almost looks like you could touch it and feel them under your fingertips. The wrapper leaf is a light brown or dark tan color (could be either, depending on how you see it) with a definite reddish hue to it and a oily touch. I got a solid sweet hay and wood aroma from the wrapper, along with some earth and pepper and grassiness on the foot.

The cold draw was great and featured some clean grassiness and sweet graham flavors along with just a touch of pepper spice.

Flavor

After I fired it up, the Señorial started off with a full-bodied earth and pepper on the palate, along with lesser notes of cedar and hay and citrus. The retrohale had notes of roasted nuts and a fierce pepperiness. As I burned through the first third, I noted that the cigar was quite full-bodied and bold in flavor…much more so than I remembered from any of the previous samples I had smoked. Not sure if it’s a function of the vitola, but it’s quite likely that’s the case. Other blends that Jose Blanco has worked on have worked best (in my opinion) in smaller ring gauge sizes: Guillermo Leon Reserve in Corona Gorda, 100 Años in Lancero and Corona, CyB in Lonsdale.

Sharp notes of pepper and citrus were up front as the second third started, while there was a solid earthiness underneath. More typical Dominican grassy and graham notes were there, but way in the background, more as accents than anything else.

The last third saw a bit of ebbing in pepper spice, but the Señorial did continue with full-bodied earth and a pleasant nuttiness.

Construction

I had to make a few minor touch-ups to the burn line as I went through the cigar, but other than that there were no construction worries.

Value

Señorial is right in the middle of the sweet spot for moderately-priced cigars, so it is an excellent value.

Conclusions

Size does matter with cigars and this Corona-sized Señorial really delivered a great full-bodied, full-flavored smoking experience with a great deal of complexity from start to finish. I will definitely be getting more of these and would love to see the line expand to include a Lonsdale or Lancero at some point. If you haven’t gotten your hands on these yet, you really should do so. It’s a very good smoking experience from one of the best in the business.

By-The-Numbers

Prelight: 2/2
Construction: 2/2
Flavor: 4/5
Value: 1/1
Total: 9/10