When you and I blend something, we simply mix it together. Ta-da! It’s blended. Typically, this is good enough for a cocktail, a recipe, some paint, or anything else we’re intermingling. But when it comes to premium products like wine and cigars, we need to complicate things a bit more, or else we can’t justify the high prices! Kidding, kidding. The reality is, if you want a premium product, you generally need a premium process. Or, as a blender like Rafael Nodal will tell you, the Solera method is needed to “enrich the aging process by enhancing the blending of flavors.”
Okay, what are we talking about? What’s the Solera method?
Well, it’s a method of fractional barrel-aging that comes from Spanish wine making, which Nodal saw firsthand many years ago. Wines from one harvest are kept in a row of barrels solera or “on the ground” as we say in English. Another vintage of wine is kept in a second row of barrels. Eventually, these two harvests with different ages are combined. After that, they’re aged some more, and then perhaps blended with another row. According to the master vintners, this creates a more uniform blend.
For Aging Room Solera Shade Cigars, tobacco from different harvests is integrated and packed together in bales for an additional aging stage that takes about a year. After that, the tobacco is rolled into cigars. This is different from the standard process which would see leaf from different harvests aged separately, then rolled together in the end to make a blend.
Aging Room Solera comes in four different wrappers, with the following flavors:
Aging Room Solera Sun Grown – earth, hibiscus, baker's chocolate. Aging Room Solera Corojo – earth, milk chocolate, and coffee. Aging Room Solera Maduro – sweet dark fruit, black pepper spice. Aging Room Solera Shade – creamy notes.
The wrappers are not subjected to the Solera process – only the Dominican binder and filler blend goes through it.
We note that this cigar is actually not Nodal’s first attempt at the technique. He did it back in 2005 for some cigars sold by his earlier company, the Habana Cuba Cigar Co (the predecessor to Boutique Blends). He released these first solera cigars at his Miami Lakes cigar lounge. But now, with the help of Jochi Blanco of Tabacalera Palma, the maker of most Aging Room cigars, it’s a whole new day.
Please browse our Aging Room SoleraShade Cigars at your leisure.
