An unranked editorial retrospective of lines available by 2016, informed by manufacturer accounts. These selections are not historical award results or firsthand tasting notes from cigars produced that year.
Before Yamasá could become a Davidoff cigar, it had to become a tobacco-growing project. That work on the land gives 2016 a powerful opening. Plasencia Alma Fuerte brings a growing family’s own brand to the foreground, and Andalusian Bull carries estate tobacco into a demanding figurado. Our picks for the best cigars of 2016 follow the connection between cultivation and craftsmanship, with Connecticut Broadleaf, Brazilian wrapper and Ecuadorian leaf adding further texture to the year.
Davidoff Yamasá
Introduced in 2016, Yamasá takes its name from the Dominican region where Davidoff developed tobacco growing. The agricultural undertaking is the heart of the story. Long before the cigar could be blended or rolled, the maker had to work with the land, giving the finished line a beginning in cultivation itself.
Plasencia Alma Fuerte
Alma Fuerte brings the Plasencia family’s growing experience directly into its own branded cigar. The original dark-wrapper Nicaraguan expression gives that background a clear focus. Here, the grower’s name moves to the front of the box, connecting experience with tobacco to a finished blend presented under the family’s own banner.
La Flor Dominicana Andalusian Bull
Andalusian Bull joins Ecuadorian Corojo wrapper to Dominican estate tobaccos in a substantial figurado. The changing contours place particular demands on the roller, giving the cigar a strong physical presence. La Flor Dominicana connects its agricultural work to that elaborate form, with Spanish-inspired presentation adding a cultural setting around the craft.
Foundation The Tabernacle Broadleaf
Connecticut Broadleaf gives the original Tabernacle its foundation within Nicholas Melillo’s brand. The wrapper makes a specific American growing tradition central to the cigar’s story. Among this year’s Dominican projects and Nicaraguan family blends, it draws the eye toward another source of leaf and the maker who chose to build around it.
San Cristobal Quintessence
Quintessence brings Ecuadorian Habano wrapper to another expression of the Ashton–Garcia partnership. It extends San Cristobal beyond the original line and the gentler Elegancia through a different blend choice. The continuing relationship develops through the tobacco, giving an established brand another clearly identified direction.
La Flor Dominicana La Nox
Brazilian maduro wrapper surrounds Mexican binder and Dominican filler in La Nox. Its dark presentation can make an immediate visual companion to The Tabernacle, while the underlying geography follows another route. La Flor Dominicana’s combination gives the appearance a detailed composition, drawing three countries into a single cigar.
Davidoff Escurio
Escurio makes Brazilian tobacco part of Davidoff’s developing black-band range. A year after its 2015 launch, it provides a revealing companion to Yamasá’s Dominican growing project. Each line begins with attention to a different origin, allowing the range to develop through distinct agricultural ideas beneath related presentation.
Undercrown Shade
Ecuadorian Connecticut wrapper gives Undercrown Shade its gentler direction within Drew Estate’s factory-centered family. Its inclusion widens the range of blending aims in this year’s company of substantial and darker cigars. The connection to the production team also keeps the hands behind the work in view alongside the land.
La Antigüedad
La Antigüedad gives Garcia family cigar making a pressed form beneath Ecuadorian wrapper. Historical Cuban artwork adds another dimension to the presentation, separate from the modern line itself. Beside Andalusian Bull’s figurado, its edges and faces reveal a different way for construction to shape the first impression.
Oliva Serie V Melanio
Melanio places an Ecuadorian wrapper around Oliva’s separate, box-pressed Serie V expression. Named for an earlier generation, the line gives the year an established example of ancestry carried into a modern blend. The pressed form and particular outer leaf keep that tribute grounded in the cigar’s visible and material details.
Looking back at 2016
The finished forms are easy to see in 2016; the work behind them takes longer to appreciate. A growing project, a family’s agricultural experience and a roller’s control over a figurado all contribute to the result. These selections make that hidden labor part of the pleasure of looking closely.
Brand background, where linked, lives on Ashologist™ — The Study of Cigars.