Zino Davidoff was born to make great cigars. Davidoff began life in 1906, the son of a cigar merchant in Kiev, Ukraine, then part of Russia. The Davidoff family blended tobaccos mostly from Asia and sold cigars and cigarettes before moving, when Zino was five, to Geneva, Switzerland. There they opened a tobacco shop. Even Vladimir Lenin, exiled in Switzerland for several years, was a customer, so the story goes, before returning to Russia in 1917. The shop was the foundation for much greater things to come.
At the age of 19, Zino traveled around Latin America – including Cuba – and immersed himself in the cultivation of tobacco. Upon returning to Geneva, Zino applied his knowledge to the family business. He created new blends, invented new ways of storing tobacco and cigars (later inventing the desktop humidor, allowing customers to buy and properly store many more cigars at home) and, in 1947, created the first Davidoff cigar lines called ‘Chateau’ and ‘Grand Cru,’ with specific shapes named after the wines of Bordeaux. Davidoff became synonymous with the good life, becoming a great status symbol, particularly in Europe. But wait, there’s more. Much more.
Before creating the Davidoff cigar, the Davidoff shop sold Cuban cigars and, in particular, had great success marketing the popular Hoyo de Monterrey Chateaux series, beginning in the 1940s. This retail acumen impressed the Cubans and the Chateaux line would become the foundation for a historic collaboration. In 1967, Cubatabaco, the state-run organization that controlled the Cuban cigar industry, approached Davidoff with the idea of making a Cuban cigar in the family’s name. The cigar, some say, was essentially a version of the Cohiba made in the same factory, but with a lighter wrapper that made the Davidoff version smoother and milder. The Cuban Davidoff cigars were a huge success and demand grew. So did production and that created concerns on Zino’s part about maintaining quality and consistency in his brand. Hedging his bets, Davidoff also began producing some cigars in the Dominican Republic, including the Davidoff White Label.
By 1991, Zino had dissolved the relationship with Cuba and moved all Davidoff production to the Dominican Republic. He cited loss of quality control as the main reason. He is alleged to have burned, in public no less, thousands of those Cuban Davidoffs that he felt were not up to standard. The truth of that is a bit hazy, but from the spiritual ashes of those sacrificed cigars grew the Davidoff empire of today.
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Zino Davidoff was born to make great cigars. Davidoff began life in 1906, the son of a cigar merchant in Kiev, Ukraine, then part of
