Hello everyone, like many of you I like to see how cigars change over time. I bought two boxes of CAO la traviata divino cigars almost exactly a year apart. I thought it would be interesting to smoke two of them at the same time, to see if I could notice any difference.

In addition to being a year apart, I belive that they represent CAO under two different owners. It is my understanding that CAO was recently bought by a large company (General?). The first box was bought in late 2010 at tex cigars, and the second was bought in january 2012 at cigarplace.biz.

There are significant differences in appearance and packaging, but I want to make it clear that I am NOT accusing any retailer of foul play, I like both texcigars and cigarplace, I am just trying to show any difference between the two vintages.


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First, if anyone cares, the box. I dont know if you can see it in the picture, but the 2010 box (bottom) has a much crisper print on it. The wood used in the 2010 is also much more dense.

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Next (again, if you care), is the band. The 2010 (on bottom) again has crisper lines, and much clearer embossing. It also contains more black lines surrounding the text of "la traviata".

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Last, and what I assume you all care about, is the cigars. I am certain that it does not show up on my crappy iphone picture, but the 2010 has tons of oil, it is shiny and beautifull. The 2010 has similar color and veins, but is dry in comparison. I dont know if it is because of the age, or the wrapper. I dont have enough experience to know if age brings out oils, so I would love your feedback on this.

The draw on the 2012 is tight. To be fair, it has only been in my humidor for a couple of weeks, and I only tried one stick. The draw on the 2010 is much loosser. Again, this is a sample of only one stick.

Flavor. For the first half of both cigars, the flavor was very different. The 2012 was good, but the 2010 had all the same flavors, along with lots of vanilla and citrius. The older cigar also has better smoke volume, and is fuller bodied, with stronger flavors.

For the second half, the flavors were nearly identical it taste, but not fullness of flavor. The vanilla and citrius dissapeared from the 2010, leaving the two sticks hard to tell apart. The 2010 did have better smoke volume, and larger flavor.

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So what did I learn? I think that bigger is not always better when it comes to cigar makers. La Traviata became popular after aficianado gave it some good reviews, and maybe it suffered a little. I dont think most people will care, because the biggest differences were cosmetic. Bands, boxes, and oily wrappers dont mean much in the end, but it is nice to see that the old CAO put some effort into it. While the flavor of the old cigar was clearly better, I imagine that most of that has to do with the extra year in the humidor, and not a change in blend.

thanks for taking the time to read the thread, and if any of you guys have identical cigars with different ages, I would love to see some of you smoke em both and note the difference.
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Interesting! Thanks for posting that. I have not had a La Traviata since the company changed hands, so I can't compare. I heard such good things about the La Traviata, and I tried to force myself to like these, but they just didn't keep my interest.

Aside from the cosmetics, could be that this particular brand just ages well?
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This stick is only a year old, which proably makes a biggest difference in the draw. Everything here in hawaii seems to take a while to dry out. The diference in flavor was slight, but the smoke volume and such may be contributed to the older cigars time to dry out a bit.

I am by no means a super taster, and I must admit that my palate felt a little blown out when double fisting the two cigars. Being that they were two, I had to puff a lot more often than usual.

Being that the cigar has only been around for a couple of years, I am not sure what the aging potential is......If I still got some a couple of years from now, maybe I will revisit this post:-)
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Interesting Review... However...

I think you have fallen victim to a common misconception:

General Cigar Company did not buy CAO. The same company that owned CAO prior to 2010... still owns CAO. Scandinavian Tobacco Group. General Cigar Company now falls under their ownership as well.

Interestingly enough, La Traviata is still made by the same people, at the same factory with the same tobaccos that it always has been.

I think what you may be experiencing is the inherent variations of a 2 year old cigar versus a 6 month old cigar.
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Thanks for the heads up on the ownership. I suppose that even within a company, the boxes and bands may change over the course of a few years. Like I said earlier, the tastes were similar, so it makes sense that the tobacco blend has not changed.
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Of course. The printing will differ slightly everytime it's done and frankly, I see no major differences from your examples.
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Slightly off topic...

I'm going to my first Opera tomorrow night..... La Traviata!
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That was my first too! (in Miami, years ago) You going to the Met?
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