Cultivation, Leave Preparations

Cultivation Tobacco is cultivated in the Cibao Valley, north of Santiago. Seeds are put in the soil and grow about 5 feet high during 6 - 8 weeks. For Premium Cigars are 12 different tobaccos cultivated in the Dominican Republic.

Harvesting Only the top leaves are good enough for Premium Tobaccos. All other leaves from the plants are used for less quality cigars. Woody cores are carefully removed. Domenico uses as wrappers the famous Connecticut/Shade leaves covering the mild line and the spicy Broad Leaf Wrapper for the medium and strong-body line.

Drying All selected leaves are dryed in open huts on the fields for six weeks. 

Fermentation During the fermentation processings the dryed leaves are put in layers and fairly watered. These layers heat up themselves and nicotine, protein, ammoniac, chlorine and sugar essentials escape from the tobacco. Depending on the number of layer-changings during the time of three month, the outcoming tobacco will be mild, medium or stronger. Through fermentation tobacco gets it final taste.

Storage Slightly pressed to bales containing 120 lb, Premium tobacco must be stored for at least 2 years prior to use. r Domenico Premium Cigars only prealtered tobaccos with an age of 4 - 6 years is used.

Production

1. Preparation On each day before processing, binder and wrapper leaves must be moistered with water. This takes half a day and 10 to 12 working steps. Wet hands stretch the leaves many times until they reach their original size. Wrappers are sorted in two sizes (for smaller and bigger cigars). Binders and wrappers must kept humid, until processing the cigars.  

2. Blending Two cuban varieties (grown in Dominican Republic) and one dominican Premium Tobaccos are blended as fillers. This is done by Master Rollers by hand using whole leaves only (long filler cigars). At Domenico we use a special rolling technique, with which we get many drawing channels through the cigars. At bigger factories this technique is not possible due to lack of time.  

3. Pressing The raw cigars (bunches) are pressed 45 min. within special woody moulds. At halftime they have to be opened again and each cigar gets a quarterturn.  

4. Wrapping the wrapper The raw cigars are taken out of the moulds and pecial wrapping masters are wrapping the very thin Premium wrappers on. Each cigar requires half a wrapper leaf.

5. Ripening the cigars After a first selection the cigars are bundled to 50 pcs. and three weeks stored. During this time the cigars shrink a little, because they loose humidity. All used tobaccos merge now together to the unique taste of a Domenico Cigar.  

6. Final Control In the fourth week after finishing a cigar, final control takes place. The owner and one of his master tabaqueros ckeck each single cigar by hand.

7. Attachments Finally the blue Domenico Ring is attached and each cigar gets its own single cellophane hull.

8. Conclusion Domenico Cigars is a small, German/Swiss owned factory, which high skilled Master Rollers from the Dominican Republic. Quality is our highest priority. For a Domenico Premium Cigar are more than 40 steps necessary. One tabaquero produces only 120 cigars per day, comparing to least 170 to 250 in mass production factories.