Cigar aficionado cigar of the year

[Monterey]

5 hours ago, Islandboy said:

Good point. Come to think of it, I don’t recall seeing the No. 1 make the list at all the following year for a while. Quite telling.

It's not quite telling at all.  Did you bother to read how the ratings are done?   It is basically impossible for a previous years cigar to be in the next years rating.   They rate cigars throughout the year.  Any cigar rated 91 or over is re-tasted  later in the year.  Again, only cigars tested THAT year are in contention for the award. Since they never did a tasting of the A.Bull in 2017, it was never in the running.   Unless they test a cigar ever year (and they don't), no cigar can be in the top 25 in back to back years.  none of the cigars in the top 25 this year will be in the 2018 running.    People bash CA and the ratings.  Always saying stuff like it is an advertising thing.  I think it is just people who are butt hurt that their cigar didn't make it in.

[Islandboy]

25 minutes ago, Monterey said:

It's not quite telling at all.  Did you bother to read how the ratings are done?   It is basically impossible for a previous years cigar to be in the next years rating.   They rate cigars throughout the year.  Any cigar rated 91 or over is re-tasted  later in the year.  Again, only cigars tested THAT year are in contention for the award. Since they never did a tasting of the A.Bull in 2017, it was never in the running.   Unless they test a cigar ever year (and they don't), no cigar can be in the top 25 in back to back years.  none of the cigars in the top 25 this year will be in the 2018 running.    People bash CA and the ratings.  Always saying stuff like it is an advertising thing.  I think it is just people who are butt hurt that their cigar didn't make it in.

Nope, I didn’t bother to read how the ratings are done. Frankly, I’m not that interested in the list to do so. You bring up yet another reason, perhaps the best, to take the list with a grain of sand - it's not really a best-of-what’s-out-there list, but rather the “Top 25 of the cigars that our friends kindly supplied us with this year” list. I suppose those of us bashing the list need to realize the futility in doing so. We’re simply expecting it to have far more meaning than it does.

[Monterey]

Yeah, labeling it "Top 25 of the cigars we sampled this year" probably would avoid some confusion.   The Cohiba Esplendido was an interesting one.  It has a super high rating, but it was a 2015 cigar.  Then we they resampled, they smoked the 2017 cigar and it dropped off.   Either the age made the difference, or 2017 was a bad time for those cigars.  I don't smoke that cigar due to the price so I don't know.