Sparks Fly in Row Over Cuban Cigars

It’s enough to make lifetime connoisseurs of Cuban tobacco choke on their cigars--the possibility that world-famous Davidoff cigars may no longer be made exclusively from Cuban tobacco.

The collapse of a 1983 business agreement between Cuba, the world’s biggest cigar exporter, and Swiss-based distributor Davidoff et Cie. has sparked a smoldering dispute between the two over ownership of the Davidoff brand name.

Cuba’s state tobacco company Cubatabaco is hotly disputing moves by the European distributor to sell Davidoff cigars made not on the Communist-ruled island but in neighboring Caribbean states like the Dominican Republic.

“Davidoff means a Havana cigar . . . there can’t be a Davidoff that isn’t a Havana,” Roberto Yaech, a deputy director of Cubatabaco, told Reuters in an interview.

Yaech said that since the Geneva-based company run by tobacco merchant Zino Davidoff began its relationship with Cuba, Davidoff cigars had been made from top-quality tobacco leaves harvested from select fields in the Vegas de Vueltabajo region of Cuba’s western Pinar del Rio province.

The aroma, texture and taste of hand-rolled Havana cigars made them unique in the world and inimitable, he added.

“The Havana is the Rolls-Royce of cigars . . . the best in the world, there’s no disputing that,” Yaech said.

After the failure of months of negotiations, Cubatabaco recently pulled out of the 1983 distribution agreement with Davidoff in which the two parties divided up sales markets.

Yaech said this agreement also provided for the transfer of ownership of the Davidoff brand name to Cubatabaco and stressed that the company would go on distributing cigars under this name despite the breakup.

The case has been taken to British courts for arbitration.

Davidoffs are among the top range of Cubatabaco’s cigars, with about 3 million to 4 million being produced each year and sent to markets in Spain, France, Britain and other European countries.

A single Davidoff can cost up to $15 in Europe.

Cuba produces about 80 million cigars a year for export to Europe and other markets, earning more than $100 million in precious foreign exchange.

Yaech does not believe that cigars produced by Davidoff outside Cuba will threaten Cuba’s sales.

“Absolutely not. Because the Havana smoker will always smoke Havanas and knows how to differentiate,” he said.

Producing cigars outside Cuba will, however, allow Davidoff to sell in the United States, a market barred to Cuban cigars due to the ongoing U.S. trade embargo against the island.

“If Zino Davidoff gets into the U.S. market, well, good luck to him,” Yaech said.

He said boxes of Davidoffs produced in Cuba could be identified by the Cubatabaco logo, the words “Made in Cuba” and the seal of guarantee of their Cuban origin.

Yaech said the move to make Davidoff-brand cigars outside the island could tarnish Zino Davidoff’s own prestige as a cigar expert. “By doing this, after saying all his life that Cuban cigars are the best in the world--he’s committing suicide,” he added.

What particularly irks the Cubans are allegations by Davidoff that there had been a drop in the quality of the cigars produced by Cuba. Cubatabaco officials vehemently deny this.

“Using the fame of Havana cigars, Zino Davidoff has tried to set himself up as the supreme arbiter of what is a good cigar or not,” Yaech said.

Davidoff, who is in his 80s, had appeared on Swiss television judging the quality of Havana cigars by sight and burning “bad” Havanas in an incinerator.

In Paris, Francisco Padron, head of Cubatabaco, told reporters that Davidoff “had not been to Cuba in over 20 years” and knew nothing about Havana tobaccos.

Offering a televised challenge, he said: “We are ready to prove it. We will meet him on French television or the European television of his choice, face to face with Cuban experts, in front of an independent panel of connoisseurs.”