Top 10 Cigars of 2017

An unranked editorial retrospective of lines available by 2017, informed by manufacturer accounts. These selections are not historical award results or firsthand tasting notes from cigars produced that year.

Tobacco continues to change after it leaves the field. Davidoff’s The Late Hour makes that stage central through Scotch-cask-aged Nicaraguan leaf, while Cuatro Cinco Reserva Especial offers another account of barrel treatment. Plasencia Alma del Campo and My Father La Opulencia add separate developments in family portfolios. Our selection of the best cigars of 2017 looks at these choices with care, following a blend from its growing origins through preparation and into its finished shape.

Davidoff Winston Churchill The Late Hour

The Late Hour arrived in 2017 with Scotch-cask-aged Nicaraguan tobacco in the blend. The treatment gives this Winston Churchill expression a precise point of difference from The Original Series. Davidoff places an additional stage of preparation at the center of the cigar’s story, extending the work beyond cultivation and conventional blend selection.

Plasencia Alma del Campo

Alma del Campo takes Plasencia’s Nicaraguan tobacco experience in a more measured direction alongside Alma Fuerte. The maker’s different positioning gives the range more breadth while retaining the connection to the same growing family. It is a useful expression of a grower’s versatility, directed toward another blending aim.

My Father La Opulencia

Mexican Rosado Oscuro wrapper surrounds Nicaraguan binder and filler in La Opulencia. My Father gives the cigar a pressed form and historical artwork, joining a specific composition to an evocative presentation. The old imagery supplies atmosphere around a modern blend, with the outer leaf providing a clear tobacco signature.

Joya de Nicaragua Cuatro Cinco Reserva Especial

Cuatro Cinco Reserva Especial uses Nicaraguan tobaccos, including barrel-aged filler, alongside a Dominican binder. Joya’s revised anniversary expression makes a revealing companion to The Late Hour’s Scotch-cask treatment. Both bring preparation into focus, while the particular tobacco and process remain essential to understanding each cigar.

Plasencia Alma Fuerte

The original dark-wrapper Alma Fuerte gives Alma del Campo a close family companion. Both grow from Plasencia’s tobacco experience, with each line carrying a separate blending intention. Together they open a more detailed view of the family’s own brand, showing how the same agricultural background can support different finished expressions.

Davidoff Yamasá

Yamasá begins earlier in the production story than The Late Hour. Its foundation is Davidoff’s work developing tobacco growing in a Dominican region, directing attention to cultivation before post-harvest treatment. The two lines reveal different stages at which a maker can shape the future of a blend.

Foundation The Tabernacle Broadleaf

Connecticut Broadleaf remains the defining outer leaf of the original Tabernacle. Nicholas Melillo’s line places that origin beside the Mexican wrapper of La Opulencia, opening two distinct tobacco stories beneath darker presentations. The visual company is natural; the interest comes from the different materials and makers behind it.

San Cristobal Quintessence

Ecuadorian Habano wrapper gives Quintessence a specific position in the San Cristobal range. The Ashton–Garcia collaboration continues through a blend distinct from both the original and Elegancia. Its presence beside La Opulencia adds another example of the Garcia family’s manufacturing work carried into a different brand and composition.

CAO Amazon Basin

Brazilian Bragança tobacco gives the original Amazon Basin an unusual agricultural center. CAO incorporates that leaf into a wider blend, making one component’s growing origin the entrance to the story. Its place in this year’s selection brings the discussion back from aging treatments to the character of the raw material.

Herrera Estelí Habano

Willy Herrera’s Habano expression puts the blender’s judgment back at the center of the chapter. The Cuban-inspired Herrera Estelí line adds another voice within Drew Estate, alongside the company’s other premium families. Fields and preparation methods supply the materials; an individual still has to decide how the cigar should come together.

Looking back at 2017

Aging becomes a more useful word when the cigar supplies the details. In 2017, cask treatment, regional cultivation and separate blending aims give us several stages of the maker’s work to consider. The year’s selections connect those decisions, tracing the distance between a harvested leaf and a finished expression.