While this may have been mentioned I could not read everything posted (sorry), but it is simple business that cigar Aficionado rates Cuban cigars mediocre. Have you paid strict attention to how much advertising Habanos SA does in cigar Aficionado's magazine being that the magazine is US based and Cuban cigars are considered contraband? My understanding is a full page add is over $50,000.00 in cA's magazine - need there be other reasons why they are constantly telling you Domincans are better cigars??

As said 99/00 was the Cubans' big mistake. It did allow the other markets to point to the quality diminishing and it provided people with the confidence to believe that non Cubans were on equal footing. Pesonally I disagree but that is just my personal taste.

Aside from the keeping up with the about to bust, "boom", the collapse of the USSR left Cuba without any backing. Areas that were otherwise not previously considered to have top notch soil for tobacco growth were seeded regardless to try to make up for the gap of income the Soviet Union's collapse created. Subsequently a substantial amount of lower standard leaf was produced and obviously was not discarded. In addition the treatment of the cigars was sped up (some say barely fermented) - all of which leveled the playing field. There was also the switch of the wrapper etc.

What is funny is most of that has long been resolved yet the same rhetoric marches on. If one likes typical Domincan cigar flavors, who am I to say otherwise. But let's not be obtuse and not realize that cigar Aficionado is not going to step on it's $100,000's contributors (per edition) to say that there is any hope for thier $0 contributors. That'll never happen and Cuban smokes will always be no better than damn good (if that).

I also find it strange that all the talent has supposedly gone to the D.R. when you tune into the rhetoric, but it took up til what maybe 4 or 5 years ago or so for a true Puro to be produced on the island. If you look around, up til that point there was no suitable wrapper leaf on the entire island and it was all imported from various other tobacco growing regions.