There's a popular saying in the wine world. You can't make good wine with bad grapes, but you can certainly make bad wine with good grapes. The same can be said for cigars. Actually, there are more things that have to go right after the harvest for cigar production than there does in wine production.

To successfully make a good cigar, you have to start with good leaves that are nurtured in the field, harvested correctly and at the right time. These leaves have to be air cured then sent to a processing facility to undergo fermentation. After fermentation the tobacco must be aged for one to three years, maybe even longer, then conditioned and prepared to be made into a cigar. The cigar is then rolled, then aged again until the stick is ready to be boxed up and shipped out. Throughout this entire process there are many hands that touch this tobacco. It is sorted, graded, and resorted so many times it's hard to keep track. There are many chances for something to go wrong during all this time, but there is one process that is the most crucial.

Fermentation is the most important step and the one that can absolutely ruin lots of tobacco if not done correctly. Without this process the cigar would be un-smokeable. It is this process that removes the ammonia from the leaf. I have attempted to smoke some tobacco that was not fermented completely and it was not a pleasant experience.

As those of you who regularly read this blog know, I was down in Nicaragua this past week with a small group of folks from ABC. We were the guests of the Torano family and our guides were Armando Lapido and Carlos Llaca-Torano of Torano Cigars. We had a great time and it was a very educational trip. I always learn something new, but I take special pleasure in seeing those who are seeing cigar country for the first time. It's hard to know what goes into making a cigar unless you've actually been there and seen it first-hand. That certainly rings true for understanding the fermentation process. When you walk into a room packed full of fermenting tobacco, the importance of this step certainly hits you and your sinuses very hard.

So how does this process work and what causes the tobacco to ferment? Well, the good thing about tobacco is that the only thing needed after leaving the field is water and time. The tobacco bunches are moistened and stacked onto a pallet known as pillones. Around a third of the way up a piece of conduit with holes in it, made of either plastic or wood, is laid on the pile which extends to the center of the stack. Tobacco is then stacked on top of it then the whole thing is topped off with burlap, plastic, or both. The weight and the moisture trapped in the leaves begins the process of fermentation. The tobacco on the bottom of the pile literally begins to cook just like a compost bin in your backyard. The temperatures reach well over 100 degrees and you can see smoke rising above the pillones. This is where things get a little tricky. If you don't ferment the tobacco long enough then it tastes bad and has the lovely flavor of ammonia, ferment too long and you ruin it by scorching the leaves. This is where those pieces of conduit come in. Inside the pipe is a string or piece of wire with a thermometer on the end. This temperature is carefully recorded on a chart and after a certain amount of time the tobacco is re stacked so the leaves ferment evenly. The times and temperatures vary according to the leaf, so it takes a skilled worker to get it just right.

A room full of pillones fermenting

We were fortunate during the tour of one processing facility that they had several different rooms with tobacco at various stages of fermentation. The first room we walked into wasn't bad and after checking the charts it was easy to understand why. Someone commented to me that the ammonia wasn't that bad. My response was that the temperature on the tobacco was just 80 degrees, which means it is close to being complete. In the next room we walked into, the chart showed the tobacco at over 100 degrees and the "not so bad" comment was quickly forgotten. We didn't spend as much time in the second room as we did the first. That difference in temperature was very noticeable.

Large pillones being perfectly stacked.

Carlos Torano and I checking the temperature chart on a pillones.

Making a great cigar is part art and part science and nowhere else is this more evident than during the fermentation process. The guy watching the big piles of tobacco, covered with tarps, and emitting ammonia may not spark the same romantic feelings as a skilled roller performing his/her craft on the rolling table. But without proper fermentation that torcedor would just be wasting time. It takes many hands to make a cigar, but it's the watchful eye of the person supervising the fermentation process that plays the most important roll.

Long Ashes,

Chris Gwaltney, ABC Fine Wine & Spirits North Florida Regional Manager. Certified Tobacconist and Cicerone Beer Server. Follow me on Twitter @abccigarchris.