If you follow us on Twitter, you may know I’m fond of drawing comparisons between cigars and people.

For example, “Cigars are like people–the good ones have balance and age well.” Or, “Cigars are like people–the good ones have structure and character, and evolve.”

I’m also a fan of documentary films, and one of my favorites is entitled, “Mondovino.” Essentially, it’s a film about the globalization of wine and the juxtaposition of old-school-traditionalist wine making versus the new-school-wine-consultant-micro-oxygenate regime. I’ve seen this film maybe 3 or 4 times and it is this film that inspired me to draw the ‘cigars are like people’ comparisons.

If you haven’t seen it yet, I recommend you seek it out. It’s full of tradition, romance, passion, conflict….the stuff that makes the world go around. The synergy (yes, Brian McGee, I said it) between the wine and cigar industries has always been obvious to me. Both products are handmade (much more so with cigars), centuries old in tradition, are harvested from the earth….there’s planting, harvesting, cultivating, fermentation, aging….on and on. The movie’s spirit captivates me and motivates me so much so that I went back and printed out a transcript of the film.

After reading it through, I noticed how some of the quotes from “Mondovino” really speak to my passion for the premium cigar industry and how they provide an excellent synopsis for where I’m at in transitioning from a ‘semi-global‘ brand/corporation to starting up Crowned Heads with my colleagues, Mike Conder, Michael Trebing, and Nancy Heathman.

They also captivate and translate my personal philosophy towards this business. Here are some of my favorite quotes from “Mondovino.” You can pretty much replace the word “wine” with the word “cigar” throughout.

“A great wine springs from love, humility, a communion with the spiritual…With the earth and time. It takes a poet to make a great wine.”

“I like wines that cut through my palate. Some wines spread outwards. They fool you. Those are modern wines. You taste them, and three minutes later, you say: Not bad, but there’s no depth.”

“Is terroir more important than your name on the bottle? Ten times more important.”

“We like chiseled wines. We feel that way about people, too. We don’t like limp people. Or limp wines. The wine you make is a reflection of who you are.”

“There really are trickster wines. The wines that trick you…They come on to you right away. Then they drop you. In fact, they’re ‘traitor’ wines!”
“Making the best wine in the world means communicating something deep inside yourself.”

In the end, to me it’s more than rolling tobacco into a cigar, putting it into a box with your band and label on it, shipping it off, and creating a slick ad campaign for the magazines. To me it’s about the translation of your own spirit and persona into something tangible–something that you love. It renders you vulnerable. It’s about the nobility and romance of the industry–not the globalization and mass production of a consumable product into an innocuous commodity.

So, I’m fully aware that we have yet to produce ‘cigar one.‘ Any and all ‘applause‘ is premature, as we haven’t done anything. Yet. But if you want to know my philosophy when it comes to cigars, there it is in a nutshell. I have nothing but respect for this industry and for the people in it; I remain humble and grateful for the opportunity to even be involved on this level.

When it’s all said and done, it will be inconsequential whether Crowned Heads ever receives ‘Cigar of the Year,‘ or if we get a dozen ’90‘ ratings, or even one. What will matter is that we will have done it in a manner that was respectful to the centuries of tradition, passion, and romance that came before us, and that we did it with integrity.

Jon Huber
Crowned Heads