Video review HERE.
This cigar was provided by Russ Burleson of the Lake Murray Cigar Club.
(Portions of description take from Cigar-Coop.com website)
The name La Mission comes pays homage to a French winery called Château La Mission Haut-Brion. This winery is located in the Pessac-Léognan region – located just southeast of Bordeaux. This winery is known for producing some very full-bodied cigars and the La Mission line is intended to be fuller offering by L’Atelier Imports.
It is perhaps the vitola names that are most interesting. La Mission du L’Atelier is being launched in three sizes, each named for a vintage year when the Château La Mission Haut-Brion wine received a 100 point designation by Robert Parker. Parker is well known in the wine industry for his “Parker Points” – an assessment scale of various wines. The 100 point rating is the highest ranking on this scale and a wine with this rating is considered “extraordinary”. Château La Mission Haut-Brion has earned this honor seven times. The three sizes being released are named for the years 1959, 1989, and 2009 when the winery received this honor. Vitolas are planned in the future for La Mission du La’Atelier with the names 1955, 1982, 2000, and 2005 – the other four times the winery earned this honor.
As with all L’Atelier branded cigars, the blend contains Sancti Spiritus tobacco:
Wrapper: Mexican San Andres
Binder: Nicaraguan
Filler: Nicaraguan
Country of Origin: Nicaragua (My Father SA)
Vitolas Available
La Mission du La’Atelier is being launched in three sizes. Each will be a box-pressed cigar with a pig-tail cap. The cigars are packaged in 18 count boxes.
1959: 4 3/4 x 52 (SRP $8.00)
1989: 5 5/8 x 54 (SRP $9.00)
2009: 6 1/2 x 56 (SRP $10.00) (REVIEWED TODAY)
The cigar is a little light in the hand. The cap is finished with a pigtail.
Here is a shot of the foot.
The wrapper is very dark. The cigar has a slight oily wrapper. The test draw after cutting the cap was very good. The initial flavors were dark, semi-sweet chocolate, coffee, boysenberry, and some butter. There was black pepper rated at an 8. You get these flavors at about the 1/4-1/2" point.
About 1 1/2 inches in there have not been much change. The boysenberry notes have a little more butter in them and there is some light cream also. The coffee is almost an espresso. The dark chocolate note are still impressive. The cigar is medium to full bodied. It looks like it would be a very full bodied cigar but at this point it is not. The finish is a toasted cream with some butter and a little lingering black pepper.
At the midpoint I noticed that the cigar is feeling soft. It may be under filled. The boysenberry notes are very subtle. The cream notes are still there with the light butter but they pail in comparison to the heavy coffee notes and the secondary dark chocolate. This is a dark noted cigar with a somewhat subtle sweetness. The black coffee is the lead flavor, followed by the dark chocolate and then any sweeter flavors.
As the cigar wound down I noticed that the dark chocolate notes really came out in the final third and I also had some sweet, dry cedar notes. The cigar ended at medium to full bodied. I continued to notice the cigar was soft. The cigar continued with very dark notes. I found the flavors to be very good and although it appears to be a full bodied cigar it fell just short of that point. The finish was unchanged. This was a good dark noted cigar.
Score: 91
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