The initial round of 2014 Edición Regionals from Habanos S.A. are upon us.

Yesterday, Switzerland took delivery of the Ramón Allones Perfectos, the 2014 regional for the region. According to cigars-premium-blog.ch, the cigar is limited to 5,000 boxes of 10 plus an additional 100 humidors. The perfecto measures just shy of 5 2/5 inches (137mm) x 48 and features the green on white band as the Ramón Allones Allones Extra, an Edición Limitada release from 2011.

It’s one of five Ramón Allones releases expected as part of the 2014 program: Germany will get a Ramón Allones 898, Italy is expected to receive a Short Perfecto, Lebanon will get a larger robusto known as Sur and Spain will get the Caprichos, a lonsdale size.

Switzerland will not be the only country to receive its 2014 Edición Regional this month. Mitchell Orchant of C. Gars Ltd told halfwheel he expects the Por Larrañaga Sobresalientes to go on sale in the U.K. by third week of November.

The Edición Regional program sees Habanos S.A., the marketing and distribution company behind Cuban cigars, create unique, limited vitolas for its distributors around the world. Sizes must be those that are in the Habanos S.A. portfolio, but not amongst the regular production offerings for the brand, although some discontinued regular sizes can be created. New vitolas created for a certain brand are also not eligible to be used. In addition, the “global” brands—i.e. Cohiba, H. Upmann, Hoyo de Monterrey, José L. Piedra, Montecristo, Partagás and Romeo y Julieta—are not eligible to be made into an Edición Regional.

Since 2012, distributors have been limited to a single release per year, a change from prior years when some distributors would receive multiple releases per year. Distributors are the ones to initiate the idea of a new release, and the cost for any new Edición Regional must be underwritten by the distributor. There is no guarantee that any particular region will get a new release in a given year.

Given the program’s track record, it’s highly unlikely that even a majority of the 2014 Edición Regionals will be released in 2014.

Intertabak AG, part of the Villiger tobacco empire, is the Swiss distributor for Habanos S.A.

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Charlie Minato

I am an editor and co-founder of halfwheel.com/Rueda Media, LLC. I previously co-founded and published TheCigarFeed, one of the two predecessors of halfwheel. I have written about the cigar industry for more than a decade, covering everything from product launches to regulation to M&A. In addition, I handle a lot of the behind-the-scenes stuff here at halfwheel. I enjoy playing tennis, watching boxing, falling asleep to the Le Mans 24, wearing sweatshirts year-round and eating gyros. echte liebe.