Cigar Maker

Who Makes Our Cigars

Tobacco will tell you what it needs, and you must learn to listen," says Hendrick Kelner, the Master Blender of PVT. LABEL cigars. An engineer by training, a cigar aficionado by trade, and a romantic by nature, Kelner is of Dutch descent. Born in the Dominican Republic, he carries on the distinguished tobacco heritage passed down by his father. "Tobacco is like a woman. To know her, you have to understand her. To understand her, you have to love her."

When Zino Davidoff decided his firm had to leave Cuba, he and Ernst Schneider looked to Kelner, whose company had been making cigars in the Dominican Republic for many years, to meet their demands for taste and quality. Now a new generation of cigars has been created. Better made, with higher standards than the competition, they are a milder, consistent cigar with beautiful wrappers.

Davidoff knew the difference between great and excellent, and Kelner is a Master Blender who can produce a cigar near to perfection. Using three leaves from Cuban seed grown in the province of San Vincente, and a top grade U.S. Connecticut shade wrapper, the delicate and elegant Kelner cigars are like paintings, each with a varied composition. Each blend - Davidoff, Avo, Griffin's and each PVT. LABEL blend- is created with the utmost of care.

Kelner follows a design, charting each objective to determine and influence the smoke. Consistency and balance are considered. He grows his tobacco from six different types of soil in the Yaque valley alone; these influential factors, along with the agricultural protocol of variety and climate, are adapted. Time and weather change from crop to crop. Growing, curing, fermentation, aging, making, and maturing all demand control and care.

Hardworking and yet easygoing, Kelner knows as much about tobacco as anyone in the world and, in some instances, maybe more. From five different cuttings he selects secrets of the ligero for punch, the seco for balance and percentage of blend, and volado for combustion. Kelner's chart includes all tobacco characteristics and combinations, containing the secrets of experience that combine into his blends. Often there are twenty-five different blends to chose from for filler and binder, and combined with the finest U.S. Connecticut shade wrappers the cigars' taste reaches toward perfection.

With these careful considerations and controlled events, the leaves are grown in outstanding soil and climate, blended for flavor and aroma, and matured for four years to produce cigars that are rare, robust, and revolutionary. This is the Master blending of Hendrick Kelner, and the making of PVT. LABEL cigars.