ACE Prime Shipping Maria Lucia & Mas Igneus Tomorrow

Two new releases from ACE Prime will begin heading to stores tomorrow: Maria Lucia and Mas Igneus.

Maria Lucia is a new line that pays tribute to the mother of Luciano Meirelles, the company’s co-founder. It is debuting in one size, a 5 1/4 x 54 box-pressed robusto, that uses a Connecticut broadleaf wrapper over Ecuadorian Sumatra and habano 92 binders and fillers from the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua and Peru.

It has an MSRP of $12.80 and is limited to 4,000 boxes of 12 cigars. This cigar served as ACE Prime’s 2022 PCA Convention & Trade Show exclusive, meaning that it is only being sold at retailers that placed orders during the PCA Convention & Trade Show.

“It took me many years before I dared to blend something inspired by my mother,” said Meirelles in a press release when the cigar was announced in June. “She passed away when I was only 12 years old, and it was only recently that I was able to fully understand and know her complicated life’s story.”

The artwork was created by Meirelles’ daughter, Deborah. According to the company, several years ago, Deborah had a dream of a woman and drew a sketch of that woman when she woke up. Despite never meeting her grandmother, Luciano Meirelles said the sketch reminded him of his mother.

“When I saw the drawing next to old photographs of my mother, I saw the similarity immediately,” said Meirelles. “It was almost supernatural the way things happened. It’s hard to believe it was only a coincidence… and now years later, when I decided to finally create this cigar, naturally, in a full-circle kind of way, we thought there would be no better idea than to use my daughter’s drawing for the box.”

While it will begin heading to U.S. stores tomorrow, ACE Prime says it shipped Maria Lucia to its European distributors two weeks ago.

ACE Prime has said there will be additional sizes of Maria Lucia added to the line next year.

Mas Igneus is a new four-size line that is inspired by wine, specifically the Mas Igneus winery in Priorat, Spain. For this release, Meirelles said the aim was to create a blend that would pair well with the vineyard’s “M” wine, which is made from Cabernet, Carignan, Merlot and Red Grenache.

ACE Prime took a more scientific approach to develop the blend, using a chemistry kit to measure the pH—the level of acidity or alkalinity—of the filler tobaccos for the blend. The idea was to create a filler blend that would match the pH of the wine.

The end result is a blend that uses a high-priming Ecuadorian corojo 98 wrapper over a binder from Brazil and fillers from Nicaragua.

It is offered in four sizes:

• Mas Igneus Short Robusto (4 1/2 x 50) — $11.95 (Box of 20, $239)
• Mas Igneus Toro (6 x 52) — $12.45 (Box of 20, $249)
• Mas Igneus Ancho (5 x 54) — $12.95 (Box of 20, $259)
• Mas Igneus Excelente (6 x 60) — $13.45 (Box of 20, $269)

“We are thrilled with all of our joint projects,” said Meirelles in a press release when the cigar line was announced last month. “Blending a cigar and winemaking are independently captivating processes, but to work jointly on this, it’s simply been a remarkable journey; searching for a balanced pH in the combined leaves was an interesting journey to say the least.”

Meirelles is also a partner in the winery.

Both Maria Lucia and Mas Igneus are made at Tabacalera Pichardo, ACE Prime’s factory in Estelí, Nicaragua.

Patrick Lagreid contributed to this story.