22. The Wise Man Maduro Corona Gorda
Foundation Cigar Co.
- Country of Origin: Nicaragua
- Factory: Tabacos Valle de Jalapa S.A.
- Wrapper: Mexican San Andrés Maduro
- Binder: Nicaragua
- Filler: Nicaragua
- Length: 5 5/8 Inches
- Ring Gauge: 46
- Vitola: Corona Gorda
- MSRP: $9.90 (Boxes of 25, $247.50)
- Release Date: October 2017
- Number of Cigars Released: Regular Production
- Original Score: 91
Adding a maduro version of a cigar is nothing new; in fact, it seemed the standard protocol for years in the cigar industry. While Nicholas Melillo did that with his El Güegüense line in 2017, he also decided to change the name around, using the English version of one of the hardest names on a cigar to pronounce.
For The Wise Man Maduro, Melillo swapped out the original’s Nicaraguan corojo 99 wrapper for a Mexican San Andrés Maduro leaf with incredibly positive results, capturing the best that the leaf has to offer: rich chocolate sweetness, earthiness, and a good bit of pepper that starts complex and only improves from there. The cigar not only shines on the flavors it latches onto for extended periods of smoking time, but even more so in its transitions that are regrettably brief as they tend to pack the most complexity as one flavor departs and another one arrives. This relatively compact cigar punches well above its class and offers a mouth-filling set of flavors that can easily fill the better part of two hours. — Patrick Lagreid.
