Smoker's Delight

"I've been smoking for five years, and I'm struck by how inconsistent the quality is in general," Crawford remarks. "A few years ago, the Licenciados Toro (a marvelous Dominican Rep. that achieved an Olympian 93 rating in Cigar Aficionado) was a reliable smoke. Then the marketing machine got hold of it. Demand soared, outstripping supply. The result? It's not the same cigar anymore."

Crawford has a point. There are too many smokers all clamoring for the output of a few thousand acres of prime tobacco land, most of it in Cuba's Vuelta Abajo and most of the rest in the Dominican Republic's Cibao River valley. It's as if all the drinkers of fine wines were competing for the global output of an area no larger than Napa Valley.

"It's not just the Cubans whose quality is affected," says Tihany. "It's as difficult to get a Fuente OpusX or a good Avo (Dominican Rep.) as it is to find a Cohiba or a Montecristo. There is simply not enough product. Cigar Aficionado has a lot to with it. They publicize a brand and the public snaps it up. But in the end it's the tobacco. You can't grow that much great tobacco on an island the size of Cuba or the Dominican Republic."

The waiter sets before us bowls filled with steaming risotto, shot through with slithery golden chanterelles and covered with thick shavings of white truffles, the color of honeyed marble. They smell like autumn in Tuscany. Something in the mix, or the conversation, summons forth a reminiscence from Michel Roux, who's smoked great cigars since his days as a paratrooper in the French Army.

"A few years ago I was at a dinner given by the U.S. Marines, and I offered the commanding general a Cuban cigar," Roux recalls. "He lit it and began to smoke. I asked if smoking a Cuban didn't make him feel just a bit unpatriotic. He replied, 'When I was a young officer my commandant told me that the first thing you do to your enemy is you burn his crops.'"

How Much Should I Pay?

The cigar smoke, a beautiful 1994 syrah from Ojai Vineyards, and the ambrosial truffles combine for a few moments of sensory overload.

Then Steve Crawford resumes his explanation of the market dynamics of mondo cigarro. "The frenzy over the brand names isn't all bad. The people who are driving up the cost of brand-name cigars are the same people who go into the humidor and pick cigars based on price. That leaves a good selection for the rest of us, because price and value aren't the same thing." He expels a gray puff of smoke from a Griffin's Robusto, which at $6 a stick isn't cheap. Even so, it doesn't approach, say, a $16 Davidoff Aniversario No. 2.

Literary agent Mark Reiter, Crawford's neighbor at the table, has been smoking cigars for the past 10 years. "When I first started smoking," he recalls, "I wouldn't let myself spend more than $3 for a good cigar. Five years ago you could do that. Then the Cigar Boom hit. A good cigar now runs at least $5 or $6. The $3 cigar still exists. It's just harder to find."

My brother Bob's experience is similar. While he smokes only occasionally, he plays golf in L.A with a number of dedicated puffers. "These guys have a lot of money," he says. "They can afford to smoke anything at any price. But when a $5 cigar becomes an $8 cigar becomes a $20 cigar, even they refuse to pay those kind of prices. It's not the money, but it is the money."

I raise a point that came up in conversation earlier in the week with Andrew Paul, sportsman and legal counsel to financier Paul Tudor Jones. "When 28-year-old bankers have $30 to blow on a cigar and a fussy drink," said Paul, "there's way too much money around. I'd say it means the market is about to blow out."

We all give a whistling-past-the graveyard laugh and move on to our steaks.

I Paid A Lot. Is It Real?

Michel Roux has a cache of vintage wine and cigars that far exceeds his capacity to consume it in a single lifetime. He also has the air of a man who appreciates the good things in life so deeply that you don't begrudge him his treasures. Instead, you instinctively want to consult him as a pleasure guru.

"You can spend fair market price for a Cohiba or a Montecristo," he interjects (even if "fair" is the monthly salary of a platoon of Cuban cane cutters), "but are you getting what you pay for? There's a tremendous amount of counterfeiting out there. If people hear that Romeo y Julieta is best, then they want Romeo y Julieta. The guy in the cigar store knows this and tells you he has a private stock in the back. This appeals to you as a connoisseur, but so many people really don't know enough about the taste of a good cigar to know if it's the real thing. "

Roux quickly adds that he's not saying that every cigar store owner who says, "Psst, I've got Cuban cigars" is a counterfeiter. Many of them will supply you with legitimate black-market cigars. "But I really wonder," he says as if he doesn't really wonder at all, "how many shops who sell Cohibas are selling the real thing?"