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Perhaps whiskey springs to mind, or maybe even cognac when you’re considering the optimal beverage for cigars. They’re the classics for such an occasion, certainly - a high quality brown liquor has the wherewithal to withstand the rich mouth-drying smokiness of a fine cigar, which makes them an obvious pairing. This is what we would consider almost a complimentary pairing. The honeyed, baking-spice laden barrel-aged liquor with a peppery, tea-scented, cedar-smoke cigar is a fine match.
But there was a time when fortified wine, specifically Port held the affections of the cigar aficionado of old. In fact, claret was quite a popular match for lighter cigars of particularly woody distinction, as well. But what about today, how has pairing wine and cigars become somehow obsolete? Is it the less-masculine nature of wine over whiskey, or perhaps the styles of wine have become far dryer in today’s day, making for a bitter clash when executed poorly, juxtaposed to the sweeter, easy-paring styles that struck a rung of fashion.
Pairing wine and cigars, in my opinion is a skill that is extremely rewarding, and something I’m often keen to continue to explore. I’m gong to mull over a few tricks with you, using some standard cigars that represent a general flavor profile, and I will then pair them with a few wines, in an attempt to keep some of these classic pairings alive, and well as we enter the new year.
Fine cigars are as complex as fine wine, and deserve the same level of respect when attempting to discern their finer traits. The most common descriptors for cigars fall in to a few broad description categories: there are nutty descriptors, herbaceous notes, those of coffee, notes indicating richness, woody and vegetal notes and, of course, earthen notes as well. These categories can all be found in wine too, add floral and fruit.
Every cigar will fit into two or three of these categories, the most complex of which will be a total wash of every category. Cigars have their own perfume and aura as well, that must be delicately matched. In the same way that wines will carry ortho, and retro nasal aromas, so cigars will perfume the room ortho nasally, and have a certain inhale, and exhale of retro and orthonasal complexities. It’s crucial that all of these are mated with a wine in a complimentary manner.
Cigars are not food. Well, they could be, but you’d be doing it wrong. At any rate, the textural elements of food that make contrasting pairings with wine so delectable, do not have the same effect on cigars. Cigars are perfumed - meaning they have developing and halting airborne aromas in the same way wine does. In much the same way as a wine requires a balance and nuance of flavors, so to do cigars. If you pair two clashing aromatic implements together, like two opposite perfumes, the paring will be unpleasant. Pairing a rich, sweet, bold meduro with Savennières the way one might pair porkbelly, doesn’t translate the same way: there’s no textural fattiness to cut through.
Generally, what you’ll have in place of texture to contend with is, in fact, heat. All cigars have a certain level of spice that comes from nicotine. It attacks the back of the palette, and then dries the mouth. Wine has this same sort of vector in alcohol, and the higher alcohol varietals can agitate the throat if indeed they are compounded with a more intense cigar. In the same way that a hot soup can make a rich wine taste soupy, a full-bodied cigar can be quite annoying. Best to pair a lighter, higher acid red with these cigar styles.
Another vector that varies from food in cigars, is the sense of umami, savory mouth-sensed characteristics. Cigars are umami-heavy, they’re devices for the inhalation of savory smoke. This level of intensity can be something that needs careful attention as well. A wine that is too heavy on intensity of fruit and lacking in complexity can easily be overshadowed. Typically when pairing with food, you want non-combative wines lacking in intensity. But again, cigars are an aromatic product, you don’t actually eat them - and as intense as a cigar can be its all nasal - whereas a wine is a liquid, and its aromatic properties are all liquid-borne. A wine’s vapors are what reaches your nasal cavity, and liquid enters the palette - meaning you want to match the intensity of your cigar, to the intensity of your wine. You want the flavors to be complimentary and slightly unique. Matching intensity of aroma will allow you to taste both together. Pickling notably complex, umami-heavy wines is a good idea.
Next there is the topic of fruit. With intensity and umami in mind, it is wise to consider the condition you want the fruit to be in when selecting the appropriate wine for your cigar or visa-versa. Cigars are smoke-laden and dry, rich in umami and nutty tones, so its important to consider the flavor burden of the cigar. Generally speaking, you want a wine that is persistent in dry fruit aromas, those of blackcurrant and date do especially nicely. A nice dry red cherry Sangiovese is never a bad option for a spicy cigar with sweeter tones, but generally you want and aged wine.
Lastly, wine should provide a certain level of refreshment from the dry smoke of the cigar as well. For a hearty maduro, this can often mean a wine of rich plum, blackcurrant and well-structured acid profile, like a claret, or, in the case of a colorado, this can mean a lighter, brighter, fruitier wine that compliments notes of cedar and allspice, like a Brunello. At any rate, cigars are mouth drying, and while it isn’t the primary goal of a well-matched pairing, it should be somewhere on the priority list to find a wine with the acid level to make one’s mouth water, and provide some much needed refreshment.
With a heightened understanding of complimentary palatability, matching intensity, savory aromatics and easy pairing fruit, we can now focus on the cigar with studious attention to detail and make for a fine pairing. As with sweet food, a sweeter cigar is going to call for a more decadent wine. The most intense are going to require a wine of incredible weight and texture as well, not just sweetness. It’s important with cigars not to mistake wine’s residual sugar with its sugar content. Bold, rich Zinfandel with its lighter tannin, but fruity jam-like texture can make a better pairing with some cigars than full-bodied Tawny.
San Cristobal is known for its dirt flavored enveloping aromas of Earth, and hickory. This cigar imparts cascading wafts of dark chocolate, and espresso as a compliment. The meduro is especially poignant, and this Nicaraguan powerhouse is one of the pricier, and less available cigars giving earth aromas, similar to those found due to Geosmin in wine. The flavors here are rich and complex but drying to the palette. There’s no intrinsic sweetness. The earthiness expressed is a bit like the dead leaves of Autumn. Too Earthy can be quite pungent, but in the case of wine and cigars, both aromas are going to be extremely nuanced and buried in a plethora of other flavors.
Your wine selection should be express all of the good-natured fun to be had of a complimentary pairing. What are we looking for, to recap, is a refreshing, light-bodied wine of good acid profile to satiate the palette. It should have complimentary aromas of espresso, chocolate, cedar and tobacco. It should also radiate some earthiness in the form of Geosmin, or general tertiary characteristics.
Italian wines tend to be excellent arbiters of cigar smoke, and exhibit a lot of the flavor, acid and dry fruit needed to hold camp next to a cigar. For this particular pairing, an aged Barolo is recommended. Barolo is a northern Italian wine made from the Nebbiolo grape. It's propensity to shine through age is made possible by its high tannin content when made traditionally, and macerated in oak for weeks on end.
Azelia Barolo is one vintage blend of many different cru that you can get at a relatively reasonable price. I’d recommend one from 2003 or 2005 if you can find it. This wine has a certain umami components that compliment the cigar smoke very nicely. There are notes of soy sauce, seaweed and peat moss, as well as road tar, brown sugar, maple syrup and vanilla bean. The wine’s overall characteristic lacks the hegemonic red fruit, red rose pedal and cassis dominate.
Nuances of doppio espresso, and roasted coffee beans are extremely notable, as is some slight volatile acid. It’s as smooth to drink as brandy, with a very nice balance in palatability hedged in favor of the slightly sweet aromas of baking ingredients, but still acetic enough to get you salivating. You’ll need an Ah-So for opening, and expect to rack this wine off into a decanter due to sediment, preferably one with a closure, to avoid sending it into a tailspin of acidification.
Arturo Fuente’s Hemingway carries on the methodic commitment to bold flavors of fresh coffees and hazelnut found in the brands distinctive tobacco blends. This large-scale Dominican cigar maker corners the market on the aromatic roasted-bean scents fawned over by cigar aficionados worldwide. Hemingway is a line of perfectos meant to encapsulate the art of this classic shape. The untold story is a 53g, 194mm meduro that screams smoked hickory and espresso notes. It boasts rich chocolate-coffee flavor bursting with soft gleaming aromas of roasted barley and caramel.
Pair with this cigar with aged Bordeaux - left bank, Cabernet-driven with not much to deliver in the way of fruit. We need something here with some complimentary espresso-like aromas, good minerality to add vigor to the refreshing aspects of the pairing, and dark fruit with some pyrazinic flavors of bell pepper. A very well-paired wine should have some graphite and cedar aromas reminiscent of a pencil, and some smoked hickory aromas as well. All of this will play well with the dry smokiness of the cigar, and will provide some refreshment and complexity to the pairing.
My pick would be a 1998 Château Lynch-Badges, a noteworthy third growth from a particularly cold year and highly-esteemed producer. The brisk acid from this colder vintage means that it comes significantly cheaper, but is preserved quite tactfully as acid helps to preserve wine. It’s also a good thing for refreshment in the case of our pairing. Acidity and tannin soften over time, and this vintage will only mellow as it gets older, leading to light flirtations of dry blackcurrant, cedar, spice box, and tobacco, as well as some fresh-pressed coffee.
This wine would be a great match for the espresso-scented cigar, as it has a lot of the same aromas of cut cedar, and roasted coffee beans, but a few of its own as well. The pyrazinic and graphite flavors will be an enveloping continuation of some of the cigar’s sweet-wood and hickory aromatics, and the dry black fruit character adds quite a nice sweetness of cassis, or blackcurrant jam to these far dryer flavors.
Woody notes are an easier match for a careful connoisseur. All wines have somne wood flavor to them, and almost all cigars will as they’re stored in cedar. Extrapolating on wood, in wine we are talking about the sense of baking spices or vanilla; even chocolate or caramel. But when we are adressing cigars, we are spaking about the actual cedar, cherry, oak or walnut that are common In most cigars.
Take Montecristo cigars, for example. There are flavors of alspice, toasted almond, and most importantly, hickory. These flavors come on strong and present themselved on the palette in a way that fades as the smoke begins to clear. These flavors are easy to match with a wine, becasue the vast majority of wines wont have any type of clashing wodsiness, but will be loaded with complimentary flavors invocing those of the spice cabinet.
When pairing a wine heavy in woody character, its important to at least attempt to pick a wine that's fruitier in its dry fruit, reserved in its use of oak, and have tons of filling flavor and a good weight. Something that is dry is better when pairing wine with cigars to keep a smokers mouth from going sticky. Something with strong savory character is ideal, but added complexity.
Oloroso sherry has a nuttiness of toasted pistaccio, and a caramel-like underpalette with tons of salinic flavor. These complexities yield to its fine texture, and broad acidity means that you can sense this fortified wine's oak solera, and consistently topped off with new sherry, so there’s almost never a dull flavor that’s aged itself out. Considering the significant aging times, this sherry develops under its flor to the point where its Tertiary characteristics become the forefront of the wine.
These toasty, nutty flavors and vanilla aged characteristics with its extremely reserved pear-like fruit and honeyed brandy-like nuance is the perfect pairing for the woodsy, earthy tones of the Montecristo cigar. This pairing works because you have the complimentary savory characteristics of both the wine and the cigar, and you will notice the refreshing acidity and higher brandy-like alcohol of the wine is a major asset to the cigar’s woodyness.
When you are looking to pair a cigar, just figure out what the focal point of the cigar is, and then find the complimentary savory or sweet focus of a wine by region, and narrow down from there by which vintage will give you the best examples of dry fruit, and which producer will be in the business of making a high quality product and what added nuance they are known for. Any of these examples can serve as gospel. Say a cigar lacks woody characteristics, but has heightened focus on coffee character, pick a woodier wine. That’s all there is to it.
That's all,
~K