2019 Reviews in Review

Before we start handing out the awards, I thought it would be interesting to review some of the statistics from our 2019 cigars reviews.

If you’d like to see the spreadsheet that has this data on it, click here.

And just as a reminder, our Review List can be found here. It’s a sortable and searchable spreadsheet that includes the 2,000+ reviews we’ve done at halfwheel and some of the sites that preceded it. I try to update it once per month though that doesn’t always happen.

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In 2019 we published 237 reviews with an average score of 87.32.

For a normal review, i.e. the ones published Tuesday-Sunday, we try to smoke three samples per review. For redux reviews and many of our Holy Grail Week reviews, it’s only one sample.

Here’s the average score for each of those categories:

• Regular Reviews: 87.23
• Redux Reviews: 88.77
• Holy Grail Week Reviews: 81.67

It was a particularly bad year for Holy Grail Week reviews, including a 72, 74 and 80.

Patrick Lagreid and I have talked about how we think it’s a lot more challenging for a cigar to receive a particularly high score if we are only smoking one sample. The data from this year would indicate it really matters what we consider to be “particularly high.”

Of the 13 cigars that scored 92 or greater, only five were redux reviews. But of the five cigars that scored 93 or greater, four were redux reviews.

BY COUNTRY

Country	Count	Average
Costa Rica	5	85.6
Cuba	25	85.6
Dominican Republic	63	87.17
Honduras	21	88.9
Mexico	3	88
Nicaragua	108	87.55
Undisclosed	6	87.5
United States of America	6	87.17

As far as trying to provide some context for these numbers, I’d certainly like to see us review a bit more Cubans. Our goal is to try to review one Cuban per week, something we were really good about during the first half of the year, but not so much during the latter half.

It’s not surprising to see that the average scores are grouped so close together.

BY BRAND

Brand	Average	Count
A.C.E. Prime	85	1
A.J. Fernandez	87	4
AGANORSA Leaf	86.25	4
Aging Room	84	1
Agio	88	2
Alec Bradley	88	2
Altadis U.S.A.	89.25	4
Arturo Fuente	86	5
Bespoke	85	1
Black Label Trading Co.	88	1
Bugatti	87	1
Caldwell	85	2
Casa Cuevas	85	2
Casa Turrent	89	1
Cavalier Genève	89.5	2
CLE	91.5	2
Crowned Heads	88	6
Crux	91	1
Cubariqueño	86	1
Curivari	89	1
Dalay	84	1
Daniel Marshall	72	1
Dapper	87	2
Davidoff	86.8333333333	12
De Los Reyes	87.5	2
Debonaire	88	1
Drew Estate	84.3333333333	6
Dunbarton Tobacco & Trust	89.2	5
E.P. Carrillo	89	1
EH Cigars	87	1
Eladio Diaz	90	1
Emilio	83	1
Espinosa	87.5	4
Esteban Carreras	86	1
Foundation	90.3333333333	3
Fratello	88.6666666667	3
Garo	87	1
General Cigar Co.	89.4285714286	7
Gran Habano	89.6666666667	3
Gurkha	86	1
Habanos S.A.	85.6	25
HVC	90.25	4
Illusione	90.2	5
Island Jim	89	1
J.C. Newman	87.5	4
Jas Sum Kral	85	3
Joya de Nicaragua	90	2
JRE	87.3333333333	3
Kristoff	87	3
La Aurora	86.75	4
La Barba	87	1
La Familia Robaina	88	2
La Flor Dominicana	87.6666666667	3
La Galera	88	1
La Palina	87.75	4
La Sirena	88	1
La Sonrisa	89	1
Lars Tetens	71	1
Mbombay	84	2
Meerapfel	90	1
Miami Cigar & Co.	86	1
MoyaRuiz	86	1
My Father	88.5	2
Nat Sherman	86	1
Nomad	88	1
OneOff	89	1
Oscar Valladares	89	3
Padilla	87	2
Padrón	87	3
PDR	86	1
Perdomo	91	1
Pier 28	83	1
Plasencia	92	1
Powstanie	89	1
Pure Aroma	89	1
Quesada	86	1
Rocky Patel	88.25	4
RoMa Craft Tobac	89.8571428571	7
Room101	88	1
RVGN	84	1
Selected Tobacco	87.5	2
Serino	86.5	2
Southern Draw	87.6666666667	3
Tatuaje	88.3333333333	12
United Cigar Group	77	1
Ventura	87	1
Viaje	88.1666666667	6
Villiger	84	1
Viva La Vida	87	1
Warped	85	1

Congrats to CLE for having the highest average score amongst brands where we reviewed more than one cigar.

The rest of the honorable mentions are:

• Foundation (90.33)
• HVC (90.25), Illusione (90.2)
• Joya de Nicaragua (90)
• RoMa Craft Tobac (89.86)
• Gran Habano (89.67)
• Cavalier Genève (89.5)

We really tried to make an effort to have our reviews be more representative of the size of companies. There are some areas where brands were disproportionally represented, the 12 Tatuaje reviews stand out, but looking over the numbers, I like this a lot more than 2018.

BY FACTORY

Factory	Average	Count
AgroIndustrial Nicaraguense de Tabacos S.A.	87	1
Caldwell Cigar Factory	81	1
Carlos Baliño	87	1
Casa Turrent	87	1
Charles Fairmorn	87	3
Cigars Davidoff	88.1428571429	7
De Los Reyes	87.6666666667	3
El Aladino	91.5	2
El Paraiso	91.5	2
El Reloj	88	1
El Rey de los Habanos	90	1
El Titan de Bronze	86.25	4
Fabrica de Tabacos Joya de Nicaragua S.A.	89	6
Fabrica de Tabacos NicaSueño S.A.	89.75	8
Fabrica Oveja Negra	85.5	2
Flor de Copan S.A.	89	1
G.R. Tabacaleras Unidas	89.6666666667	3
General Cigar Dominicana	92	2
InterCigar S.A.	84	1
J. Fuego Cigar Co. de Nicaragua	81	2
J.C. Newman PENSA	87	2
Kelner Boutique Factory	87	1
La Aurora Cigar Factory	87.6666666667	6
La Corona Factory	87.6	5
La Gran Fabrica Drew Estate	83.8	5
La Sonrisa Cigars S.A.	89	1
La Zona Cigar Factory	86.6	5
Las Lomas Factory	87.3333333333	3
My Father Cigars S.A.	87.6875	16
NACSA	88.25	4
Nueva Matacapan de Tabacos S.A. de C.V.	88.5	2
O.K. Cigars	87.75	4
Oscar Valladares Tobacco & Co.	89	3
PDR Cigars	86	2
Plasencia Cigars S.A.	85	3
Quesada Cigars	86	2
Raíces Cubanas	91.5	2
Royal Agio Cigars Factory	89	1
San Judas Tadeo	89.5	2
San Lotano Factory	86	2
Segovia Cigars S.A.	89	1
STG Danlí	89	2
STG Estelí	89	1
Tabacalera A. Fuente y Cia	86.3333333333	6
Tabacalera AJ Fernandez	88	13
Tabacalera Altagracía	84	1
Tabacalera Carreras	86	1
Tabacalera Cinqo Estrellas	87	1
Tabacalera de Aragon S.A.	85	3
Tabacalera de Garcia	91	1
Tabacalera de García	88	1
Tabacalera La Alianza S.A.	88.3333333333	6
Tabacalera La Flor S.A.	87.6666666667	3
Tabacalera Las Lavas S.R.L.	85	2
Tabacalera Magia Cubana	77	1
Tabacalera Padilla	88	1
Tabacalera Palma	85.75	4
Tabacalera Perdomo S.A.	90	2
Tabacalera Pichardo	87	2
Tabacalera William Ventura	88	3
Tabacos Cubanica S.A.	87	3
Tabacos de Costa Rica	85.6	5
Tabacos Rancho Jamastran	74	1
TABSA	88.625	16
TAVICUSA	87.6666666667	3
Undisclosed	86.064516129	31

The factory data is perhaps the most surprising, I don’t think I would have guessed any of the names that are represented amongst the top four on this list.

• General Cigar Dominicana (92)
• El Aladino (91.5)
• El Paraiso (91.5)
• Raíces Cubanas (91.5)
• Tabacalera Perdomo S.A. (90)
• Fabrica de Tabacos NicaSueño S.A. (89.75)

Once again, the full data can be found here.

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For those wondering, here’s the awards week schedule:

• Jan. 14, 2020 (Tuesday) — Factory of the Year
• Jan. 15, 2020 (Wednesday) — Company of the Year
• Jan. 16, 2020 (Thursday) 12 p.m. CDT — Packaging Awards
• Jan. 17, 2020 (Friday) 12 p.m. CDT — Top 25 Cigars + Post Show
• Jan. 20, 2020 (Monday) 12 p.m. CDT — The Consensus Top 25 Cigars