Luciano Mas Igneus Excellente

Luciano Mas Igneus Excellente was supposedly blended to pair with a Spanish red wine. Mas Igneus translates roughly to House of Ignition. Enough back story. The cigar includes Nicaraguan filler, a Brazilian binder and a smooth Ecuadoran Corojo wrapper with nary a seam or vein to be found – the complaint of every phlebotomist when I have lab work done. The primary band is a gold logo on a black background. The secondary is black on gold proclaiming it as “Mas Igneus.”

After lighting the cigar, I was greeted by a flavor I rarely taste in cigars but do in wine. So, I go back to the back story. I noticed that Max Igneus is the winemaker from Spain collaborating with Luciano. Never having tasted the wine…if it has slate, chalk mineral to it then the cigar pairs well with the wine because that’s what I taste in the opening stages of the cigar.

Let’s say it’s very earthy, oaky and peppery along with other spices – cinnamon/nutmeg, almonds, chocolate, dark roast coffee, cloves and raisins. The chocolate turns dark chocolate by the midway point. A taste that reminds me of German rye bread sneaks in for a few puffs. The chocolate, coffee, nuts and almonds take over by the end of the second third as the dominant flavors. It’s medium-full bodied and medium strength. At the start the cigar seemed destined to be an enjoyable flavor bomb. Then it all fell apart – literally.

The construction needs attention – open draw, but limited smoked output, flaky white ash that fell off frequently, and an erratic burn line that needed a number of touchups. There was an unrepairable wrapper crack that appeared during the second third. The cigar went out on me twice.

Despite the open draw, I couldn’t get a lot of smoke out of this stick. That and the other construction issues impeded fully appreciating the array of flavors I could taste in the cigar. I tried my best to give the Luciano Mas Igneus a chance to shine. No sucedio nada. Into the ashtray it went during the final third.

BTW: I make it a point *not *to pair cigars with wine. Port, yes. Fine wine, never. Smoke, even from a premium cigar, ruins the taste of a good bottle of wine, in my humble opinion. So does that make me a wine snob or a poor cigar smoker?

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