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Having had a good experience with its Vintage 1999 line, I pulled the Graycliff Château Grand Cru from the humidor with good expectations. Being in Europe, it’s hard for me to gauge how popular these cigars really are, since we rarely find non Cuban cigars at our tobacconist, but one thing is clear: Graycliff really does make a great tasting cigar.

Profile wise, in contrast to the Vintage 99, the Château Grand Cru is much nuttier with less darker notes like cacao or caramel. The smoke is dense, creamy and plentiful. I would pair this cigar with a glass of fine Champagne or Alsacian Riesling.

The wrapper is sweet on the nose with obvious notes of red pepper corns and spices. The cigar is rewarding form the start. The first inch or so is chock-full of toasted almond notes with some pepper hints.

You will love the sweet aroma of the Grand Cru. The even burn means no retouching with the lighter, which keeps the aromas pleasant.

The flavor profile evolves past the half way mark toward cedar accompanied by roasted nuts and light spices in the background. These notes stay in place through to the end, with perhaps a small hint of licorice if you take it far enough. The finish consists of sweet wood and nuts.

I recommend the Graycliff Château Grand Cru heartily to everyone. The lack of sheer power means it should be enjoyed by even the novice.

Check it out at Cigars Direct, where I got this lot, and as always, feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section.

By the laws of plain economics, raising taxes or imposing tariffs on companies that sell or produce a particular commodity, like cigar manufacturers, immediately results in a price hike of that commodity as companies rush to minimize their losses by passing the cost of the taxes or tariffs onto the consumers.

We saw this last year with the proposed flat $3.00 tax on cigars, which, if it had not been vetoed by the president, would have raised the average price of cigars by no less than $3.00 a stick. So, would anybody please explain the mechanism through which raising taxes on the oil industry or confiscating profits would in effect lower the prices we see at the pump? Arrrgh!

Anyhow, I was getting mildly nauseated as I watched the John McCain town hall meeting on Fox last night and decided it was time tune out the madness and enjoy a good cigar. I needed something of a serious cigar, so I pulled out a Camacho Coyolar Puro Rotshchild.

This cigar in my experience is very solid, with an excellent burn and aroma all the way. It’s certainly potent and has a good profile. I would say that this is one stick that benefits a lot by aging, as it has a lot of potential for evolution.

The Coyolar Puro experience starts with the marvelous wrapper before the light-up. I appreciate the dark aroma or cacao, wood and bittersweet spices. It lights easily, producing a very peppery initial burst of smoke. You know there is power to come right from that first peppery puff. However they achieve this, it’s very well done and extremely appealing.

The pepper would be too much if it did not subside as the cigar progresses; but it does. It evolves as the power picks up and the pepper mellows out into a very classic, old school almost leathery tobacco flavor with bitter spice notes in the background. The aroma has a distinct sweetness to it.

Past the half way mark, the smoke picks up strength again, but pleasantly so. I was so relaxed by now that the eerie moments, during the town hall meeting, in which McCain sounded just like Obama, or worse, didn’t freak me out anymore. The flavor was just too good and solid as usual.

Bitter espresso notes surfaced as the cigar approached the great finale. The aroma stays sweet, and overall the flavor too stays pleasant through to the end; so long as the power isn’t too much for you. I would recommend this as a complement to a good evening meal to any smoke that enjoys a full bodied cigar or one that is transitioning into one. The flavor is superb and should help the transition into fuller blends.

I remember getting this stick a while and thinking, hmm… this bad boy looks like it will need some age. So I put it away, forgot about it and it wasn’t until now that it began calling me from the bottom drawer of my humidor.

Now I’m a huge fan of Rocky Patel, especially of the sun grown stuff, and as the edge promised to be a cigar for the professional smoker, I had to accept the challenge. Now that I’ve brought this dark toro to its knees, not only do I feel triumphant but satisfied.

Perhaps it was the meal I had beforehand, perhaps it was my battle hardening habit of taking these beauties to the nub, whatever the case, this stick did not seem overly powerful to me. Even with some over-puffing, I didn’t really feel the power. However, I would probably still recommend this cigar to full-bodied aficionados.

The wrapper on these sticks has a very nice natural maduro color. On the nose, it reminds me of black pepper, nutmeg and sweet chili peppers. I lit this up with a cigar match and noticed that the black pepper of the wrapper translated into a perceivable spicy hot taste which I found appealing.

I particularly enjoyed the draw of this cigar. It was right where I like it and yielded a generous volume of baking-spice -scented smoke. As the smoke progressed it got a little doughy, if that’s the word. The tasting notes turned toward toasted bread, spices and maybe even some musk. The latter was certainly present in the scent as well.

A bit further and the notes, though far from actually evolving, got a little more concentrated, with the addition of a certain chewy character. Well past the half way mark I noticed a bit of an espresso note come in alongside the baking spices, which were still the central characters.

The only gripe I have about this stick is that it would have been more enjoyable had it not been for the constant attention it required from me as it continually threatened to go out. As I keep my humidity constant at 65% it is unlikely that this was due to over humidification. As a result, I probably puffed a bit more than I’d like and so a mildly acrid flavor almost jeopardized the finish.

This is an issue that may be resolved with a bit more age. However, I recommend that the cigar is smoked more slowly in general to avoid having the flavor profile going completely south in the last 2 inches. If you do, you will enjoy a nice spicy finish.

You can get more information on this and other Rocky Patel Edge cigars at Cigars Direct where I bought this lot.

If you are a wine enthusiast like me, there is one trip that comes just about as close to a religious pilgrimage for us as can be. That is a trip to the Bordeaux province, and more importantly, to the Médoc region. Having visited the area on a recent trip, I can also say that, regardless of how long you have been a wine enthusiast, there is a lot to be learned from a visit of the celebrated wine region.

First, I should say that in order to tour any of the five Premiers Crus, known in English as the First Growths, you would be dreaming, unless you make a reservation at least six months in advance, in some cases, even a year earlier.

On our hit list, first and foremost was Château Margaux followed by Château Lafite, Château Latour, Château Haut Brion, and the modern addition to the 1855 list of Frist Growths, Château Mouton Roschild.

We also wanted to have some more personal tours of other Great Growths in the area, some of whom are making wine these days that is as good as the First Growth elites, but which are much more affordable due to the lack of name recognition.

Whatever the case, you can’t tour any château in Médoc without getting the real up-close look at the classic Bordeaux wine making process and an in-depth understanding of the myriads of variables that come together to produce a great Bordeaux red.

We got a personal, not in a group, tour of two great wineries that I would like to recommend. Château Pontet-Canet sits just up the road from Château Mouton Roschild. They make wine that has been consistently scoring in the upper to mid 90s by celebrated magazines such as Wine Spectator. They were not only professional, informative and extremely friendly, but were classy enough to let us taste a bottle of well aged wine when it was at its peak; as opposed to many châteaux that will only serve the latest crop, which obviously is still very tannic and clearly not enjoyable.

A second personal tour we had was Château Prieuré Lychin, in the Cantenac Margaux region. They strive with great success to produce wine that is very classically Margaux with excellent marks as well. Their tour was very detailed indeed and loaded with information. Expect notable detail in the cellars, where you will learn of the different properties of the varieties of oak used to bring out the best potential of each years’ vintage, the periodic sampling and the oxygenation process. You can have a generous taste of both their first and second wines.

This trip is a must for all wine enthusiasts. There will be more to come on the classification process as opposed to other wine regions in France and maybe some of the details I gathered during this awesome trip.