By Jay Amberg. Bloomberg Lifestyles . Mon, 20 Mar 2000, 12:33pm EST
Havana, March 8 -- Recent visits to the main cigar factories in Havana have confirmed that a severe shortage of quality wrapper leaf has forced most factories to shut down or reduce 60-70 percent of their workforce.
It's the big silky leaf that goes on the Gran Coronas, Prominentes, Julietas and Piramides that's in short supply.
While the situation is most acute with the largest sizes, the manufacturing of the factory shapes called Corona Gordas, Campana (Belicoscos), Hermoso No. 4s, Robustos and Dalias has also slowed, if not ceased.
Take Partagas, for example. The factory has a skeleton crew working in most departments. The rolling school downstairs is closed and the main rolling room on the top floor had two veteran rollers making Piramides, for show, I assume.
The entire left side of the rolling gallery was empty, with the benches stacked on top of the tables. All the remaining rollers were producing hand-finished cigars either destined for domestic consumption or shipment to Spain.
These cigars looked like No. 2 pencils, only half their size, with a pointed head that was left open. They were ugly little sticks and would never be sold to a discerning cigar smoker.
Dubious Marevas
In Partagas there were two benches where Marevas of dubious quality were being rolled. I wondered if these could have been manufactured for the rollers to take home themselves because the quality of the wrapper leaf left much to be desired.
On the floor below, two older men were stripping hundreds of Robustos, Hermosos and Piramides of their layers of tobacco. The tobacco was going into old wooden barrels. The cigars were rejects, which had been sent back to the factory or had failed to pass internal quality control checks. The
stripped and crumpled tobacco would be used for domestic cigarettes.
I guess the Cubans will be smoking some strong cigarettes in the not-too-distant future.
In the room downstairs where Cuban warranty stamps are affixed, hundreds of boxes of Montecristo No. 4s, bearing the code FPGNISU (Partagas 12/98), were being sealed with old warranty stamps rather than the new, redesigned version.
All the boxes bore the Spanish Tax seal as well, so they obviously were destined for Tabacalera SA's warehouse in Madrid.
A tour of the plant, arranged through Habanos SA, was a good show but I had already learned from Benno Rutishauser, owner of REX, a cigar club in Zurich, that his contacts in La Corona had confirmed the Partagas factory had been idle since January.
A visit to La Corona confirmed that while the factory was in better shape than Partagas, it too would begin shutting down its operations.
It was in La Corona where the first boxes bearing the new ``FEB00'' date code were spied, an indication Habanos SA was finally making good on its promise to publish a legible date code so aficionados around the world can age their cigars.
The Romeo y Julieta factory had the same look as Partagas, with about 60 percent of its workforce gone, though production of its limited 125th anniversary cigars continued.
Rollers and contacts in all three factories said they didn't expect operations to recommence at capacity until mid-May or even June.
The leaf, or ``product'' as the rollers called it, just wasn't there.
The Cohiba
The only factory that looked to be operating at nearly full strength was El Laguito, with the bulk of the rolling galleries producing Trinidads, Cohiba Lanceros and Cohiba Coronas Especiales.
I didn't see much production devoted to Exquisitos, though some of the rollers were working on the Panatelas. I must admit it's difficult to tell the difference between a Cohiba Lancero and a Trinidad Fundadores without their bands.
The rolling school, on the same grounds as El Laguito and off from the main factory (actually a converted mansion), was filled with students. The color grading, banding and boxing rooms were loaded with cigars and seemed to have the usual staff.
At El Laguito I got my second look at February's production being boxed and using the ``FEB00'' date code.
Emilia Tamayo, El Laguito's manager and the only woman in Cuba holding down such a prestigious position, said while the other factories were having problems, because of El Laguito's special status as Cuba's preeminent cigar factory, her employees weren't subject to the same fate as those at
Partagas, La Corona and Romeo y Julieta.
``Our product is special. We only get the very best leaf and we triple ferment our tobacco,'' Tamayo said. ``If there are
problems, they will not affect this factory.''
With more than 40 cigar factories scattered throughout Cuba, visits to only four Havana factories may not offer a fair composite of what's going.
However, since Partagas, La Corona and Romeo y Julieta are three of the stars that comprise Havana's ``Holy Six,'' the original pre-revolution factories, then I think it's fair to speculate that the production of premium cigars at the provincial factories has slowed similarly.
Bigger Problems
As reported in Cigar Aficionado last week, a severe outbreak of blue mold (a fatal fungus) in the Vuelta Abajo significantly reduced last year's harvest of cigar tobacco.
It's no wonder that Cuba is so eager to plant and harvest its new Habana 2000 wrapper. Agricultural experts claim the Habana 2000 is much more disease resistant to blue mold.
There seems to be some concern that the Habana 2000 plant doesn't produce the same large wrapper leaves that Cuba's traditional Corojo plant yields.
While I heard the 2000 crop looks exceptional, I have no clue about the size of this year's wrapper leaf.
At last week's Habanos SA International Trade Fair, the company heavily promoted Habana 2000. A huge multi screen video presentation featured Pinar del Rio's famed tobacco farmer, Don Alejandro Robaina, touting the new plant as he toured his farm where Habana 2000 has all but replaced Corojo as
the plant of choice.
Habanos SA was also selling special Marevas made with Habana 2000 wrapper at $100 for a box of 25.
Blue mold aside, people inside and outside Habanos SA said theft also left the factories short on leaf. ``It's more widespread (theft) than anyone in Habanos SA will admit,'' said an outside contractor who has worked for Habanos SA. ``It's from the farm to the factory, but this year it was even
more acute because there are so many factories and so many opportunities to make off with product.''
The source, who requested anonymity, said inventory controls were impossible to maintain and whole shipments of wrapper leaf were lost, meaning stolen. ``Yes, there has been a big crackdown on counterfeiting, but people need U.S. dollars to survive and the cigars are a big source of this
income,'' the contractor said. ``Whole shipments of wrapper leaf never made it to some factories.''
I heard the same tale from other knowledgeable people. There's probably much more to this story than we'll ever know.
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