Pinar del Río Small Batch Reserve Maduro Robusto (Prerelease)

Rumblings of two new cigar lines from Pinar del Río started circulating around the internet in late January, and on February 2, we broke the details of the new additions: the Small Batch Reserve and Flores y Rodriguez.

The Small Batch Reserve will be the first to come out, with a due date of late this month or early March.

It will be available in four sizes:

• Small Batch Reserve Robusto – $7.08 (Boxes of 20, $141.06)
• Small Batch Reserve Toro – $7.50 (Boxes of 20, $150.00)
• Small Batch Reserve Torpedo – $7.92 (Boxes of 20, $158.40)
• Small Batch Reserve Churchill – $8.33 (Boxes of 20, $166.60)

Both will be available in Natural and Maduro versions, with the Flores y Rodriguez in similar sizes as the Small Batch Reserve but with prices between $4.55 and $5.55 per cigar. The Small Batch Reserve and Flores y Rodriguez lines are among the first to come out of Pinar del Río’s new factory, PDR Cigars, a facility opened after the company spent nearly a decade at Tabacalera Don Leoncio. Both factories are in Santiago, Dominican Republic.

Currently, Pinar del Rio offers eight lines of premium cigars:

• Habano Sungrown
• Oscuro
• Clasico
• 1878 Cubano Especial Natural
• 1878 Cubano Especial Maduro
• 1878 Reserva Dominicana Oscuro
• 1878 Reserva Dominicana Habano
• Liga Especial Reserva Superior

They also manufactured the BOTL.org Small Batch 2010, which Brooks Whittington recently smoked for a redux review after originally reviewing it in September 2009.

• Cigar Reviewed: Pinar del Río Small Batch Reserve Maduro Robusto
• Country of Origin: Dominican Republic
• Factory: PDR Cigars
• Wrapper: Brazilian Cubra Habano Maduro
• Binder: Dominican Criollo ’98
• Filler: Nicaraguan & Dominican Corojo
• Size: 5 Inches
• Ring Gauge: 52
• Vitola: Robusto
• MSRP: $7.08 (Boxes of 20, $141.06)
• Release Date: Late February/Early March 2012
• Cigars Released: 100 Boxes of 20 Cigars (2,000 Total Cigars)*
• Number of Cigars Smoked for Review: 1
  *There will be 100 boxes of each size, meaning a release of 8,000 total cigars for each wrapper.

Pinar del Río makes their Robustos to a 52 ring gauge, slightly larger than the textbook 50 ring gauge that you might be familiar with. Their Toro is also a 52 ring gauge and their Churchill is a 54, noticeably larger than the standard 50 and 48 ring gauges, respectively. The Maduro wrapper is gorgeous, a rich brown color with just a few veins that really carries the Maduro standard well. Pre-light aroma of the Small Batch Reserve Maduro is rich with grape juice and has an unmistakable sweet note. The cold draw is just firm enough with a bit of spice, but the sweetness isn’t as noticeable here.

Once lit, the ash turns a brilliantly bright white, almost startling me with its color. The third starts much spicier than I expected as a good bit of pepper hits all over the tongue, but attacks the tip with a bit more focus. Compared to the Habano version, the first third of the Small Batch Reserve Maduro is much smoother with a more well rounded flavor, though at the expense of the some of the really distinctive notes the Habano put forth. At times, the Maduro’s version flavor seems to be a bit flat, though the smoke had a great smell of grape jelly on toast that made up for what the palate was missing.

The second third is by far the most boring with the flavor hardly moving in any direction, so much so that the only note I write down is: doesn’t develop.

The final third presents the most technical challenges with the cigar struggling to stay lit for what seemed like anything longer than a minute. Most of the final third is spent as follows: relight, puff a few times, put down, pick up and try to puff only to find it has gone out, curse under my breath, relight, repeat. When the cigar stays lit, it almost returned to the levels of spice found in the first third. What sweetness I was expecting from the Maduro wrapper didn’t reappear and the cigar puttered along until the frustration of relighting it won out and it was tossed in the ashtray.

Final Notes

• Both the Natural and Maduro versions of the Pinar del Río Small Batch Reserve had burn problems in the second half that negatively impacted my enjoyment of them. They could still be a bit too fresh out of the aging room, so I’m hoping it’s a simple problem that will be resolved by the time they hit store shelves.
• Unlike the Natural, the Maduro’s ash performed much better. Nowhere near as much flaking and blowout –  a definite plus.
• Like the Natural, the band features three additional marks. The first is on the back side of the band and has A. Flores y J. Rodriguez in a signature-like font, with “HANDMADE IN THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC” under that in block letters. Juan Rodriguez is the president of Don Leoncio Cigars and heads up the import business. On the left side of the band is “Cubra Maduro,” which refers to the wrapper; while “SVL Habano” is on the right side, and according to Abe Flores, owner of Pinar del Río, refers to “seco, viso, and ligero – all Cuban seed and proportional in the blend.” Unlike the Natural version, it’s much easier to read thanks to a white band with brown type.
• The Flores y Rodriguez line is slated for release at the 2012 IPCPR Convention and Trade Show in Orlando during the first week of August.
• In my conversations with the folks at Pinar del Rio, I got the feeling that these cigars could become regular production depending on how the market receives them. That would bring their total number of premium offerings to 12 different cigars – a solid line-up for what many would still consider a boutique company.
• Along those same lines, I wouldn’t mind seeing this and the Natural in some smaller vitolas. In many of their other lines, Pinar del Río makes upwards of eight sizes from Lancero to 6 x 60, so it would stand to reason that if these cigars get a good reception a new round of sizes could be introduced.