четверг, 28 июня 2007 г.

BANDS GO DUTCH

Los Angeles, May 24 - If you have marveled at the stunning detail, color and impact of giant bands like the Ashton Estate Sun Grown series, C.A.O.'s Brazilia line or the Fuente Fuente Opus X, you're not alone.

The company behind these artworks that surround a cigar is Vrijdag Printing of Eindhoven, the Netherlands. And its story is featured in the new, Summer 2007 issue of Cigar Magazine.

"The trend in the cigar-packaging world is generally toward bigger, more intricate designs," said company President Peter-Louis Vrijdag, grandson of the founder of the firm back in 1905. Vrijdag noted that in addition to making a brand stand out on the shelf, another value of the band is to be able to defeat counterfeiters. Like the U.S. Mint, Vrijdag uses state-of-the-art techniques such as holograms and microprinting to create difficult-to-duplicate bands and labels.

Writer Ronald Margulis profiled the firm, which has 120 staff members, printed about 250 million bands and 10 million cigar labels in 2006 and had sales of about $65 million U.S. About two out of every three labels is destined for European-marketed brands and the rest for Western Hemisphere companies.

"Presentation plays a role in the perception we have in the product, which, of course, is the basis of our existence as a printer of packaging," Vrijdag noted. And he's bullish on the future of the industry. "People like cigars. There can be no other reason to buy them than that you like cigars. Also, it has to do with lifestyle: you have a nice whiskey, it makes us feel pleased, and that is important."

Vrijdag deals directly with many of the top cigar companies in the world, but it's often a juggling act with changing deadlines and various crises to solve. His plant is visited often; Margulis noted that when a cigar company executive comes to Eindhoven, a competitor's job is never on the presses!

The company has expanded into other areas of commercial printing, including an innovative cardboard cigar box that can be used instead of wood. And labels and packaging for brands such as Godiva, Heineken, Yves St. Laurent and others are also part of the company's output. But cigar bands and label still remain the driver, accounting for 60 percent of total volume.

It's not quite like it was in the 1960s, when the company printed two billion bands a year just a decade and a half after escaping destruction at the hands of the Nazis in World War II, then losing everything to a fire in 1948. Today, as long as there is an eye for quality and distinction, there will be a place for Peter-Louis Vrijdag and his "band" of cigar artists.

The Summer issue was full of other treats as well, including:

 An interesting rating of 30 robusto-sized cigars, with some of the highest scores ever seen in the magazine's reader review panel:

> Among the eight mild-bodied cigars tasted, the clear winner was the Montecristo White Rothchilde, which received the top scores for appearance (90), taste (87) and construction (88) for an overall grade of 88.3 (Please note that the construction score is doubled and then the four scores are divided by four to obtain the average on a 100-point scale). Nothing else was even close.

In the medium-bodied category, 15 cigars were tasted and again, one cigar stood well above the rest: General Cigar's Cohiba Robusto.

It took the top scores in this tasting for appearance (88), taste (89, tops in the whole review) and construction (90) for an overall average of 89.3, tops in the tasting. In the taste category, the Partagas Robusto scored 88 points, just one behind and had an overall grade of 88.0, second-best in this group. The Punch Rothschild scored an 87 in the taste category for third-best in the medium-bodied group.

Among the heavy-bodied cigars, the top honors among the seven tested went to Altadis U.S.A.'s Trinidad Robusto with a maduro wrapper. It won for best appearance (88 points), taste (87) and construction (86) for an overall score of 86.8.

Several others in the tasting matched the 86 score for construction and the C.A.O. l'Anniversaire eXtreme Robusto also scored 88 points for appearance. Next best in the taste category behind the Trinidad was the C.A.O. eXtreme at 86 points.

There was an additional, interesting reader-written evaluation of all five blends of the famous Macanudo line: Cafe, Gold Label, Robusto, Vintage and Maduro, but there were no numerical scores to report.

 Lew Rothman contributed a terrific story on one of the cigar trade's endearing figures, Sal Fontana of Camacho Cigars. Rothman met Fontana when he was at the American Tobacco Company in the 1960s, but Sal began in the business in the late 1940s as a cigarette salesman, then moving on to the cigar division.

Eventually, he and some partners acquired a company called Upmann International in Florida, which apparently owned the Carl Upmann brand name (different than the H. Upmann brand, but spelled the same). As Fontana grew the brand, it wasn't long before the company was sued by the owners of the H. Upmann trademark (Consolidated Cigar, now part of Altadis U.S.A.). The result was that in 1979, the brand name was changed to Baccarat, which brought another suit from the folks who make Baccarat crystal. While his partners dealt with the lawsuits, Fontana continued to try and grow the brand.

Eventually, Fontana left his partners and struck a deal with the man who had been making Baccarats for him, Julio Eiroa. They decided to add a sweetened tip to Baccarat, which they owned after Fontana's old partners had abandoned the trademark. And it took off, now selling in the millions annually.

Christian Eiroa's Camacho Corojo blend followed a few years later and Fontana now assists with one of the most vibrant companies in the trade today. Now in his early 80s, he continues to expand the Camacho Cigar brands because, as he told Rothman, "it's what I do."

This issue - written for people who are really interested in cigars as opposed to the spend-more-than-anyone-has lifestyle - also includes a fascinating retrospective of how those who left Cuba when the cigar trade was nationalized spread across the world to try and re-start their lives in tobacco in new places, a perspective on the future of the Cuban cigar industry and Simon Chase's review of how the Cubans have re-energized it with new products in the past few years, and much more.

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