Zino Davidoff (1906-1994) towers over cigar history & culture, and not just for fine cigars & shops which bear his name today. It was Zino in his Geneva store, who pioneered the special cigar shop humidor room to keep cigars fresh, followed in turn by the desk-top cigar humidors now used worldwide.
In this 15-minute video homage, with English subtitles for Zino's elegant French, we see Zino himself speaking: in his shop; on television sharing cigar lore & anecdotes; with Baron de Rothschild at his château; and charmingly about 13:30 where Zino lights a cigar for a lovely lady (actress Rosy Varte?), and opines amusingly about cigars & femininity.
Born to a Russian-speaking Jewish family in Kiev, where pogroms led them to seek haven in Geneva, Switzerland, Zino's father came to run a tobacco shop where Zino assisted when not in school. One customer there whom Zino met as a boy, was Vladimir Ulyanov Lenin.
As a young man, Zino's family helped him take a grand tour working & living in Argentina, Brazil & Cuba, where Zino honed himself as the man who would become the world's greatest expert on cigars and cigar-making. Taking over the family Geneva shop, Zino's life changed in 1940 as armies marched toward Paris. With Zino's reputation for honesty & integrity, French & Cuban tobacco traders chose Zino to be the trustworthy recipient of 2 million Habanos cigars in Paris warehouses. The fortune Zino earned from being the greatest source of Cuban cigars in all Europe, enabled Zino after the war to begin his own cigar line, & the company that bears the Davidoff name.
Zino's first personal cigar creations were named 'Grand Cru' - French for 'great wine' or 'great vineyard' - pointing out the similarity between fine wines & fine cigars; Grand Cru cigars in Davidoff stores today, honour this history.
According to legend, after the 1959 Cuban revolution, it was Zino who personally convinced Comandante Fidel Castro to continue to sell Cuban cigars under their historic traditional brand names such as Montecristo, Hoyo de Monterrey, Herman Upmann, Romeo y Julieta, & Partagás. Curiously, in contrast to current trends favouring nearly 2-centimetre-thick cigars such as the Robusto, both Zino Davidoff and Fidel Castro actually preferred the exact same more slender cigar thickness of about 1.5 centimetres, the 38 'ring gauge' (38 / 64 of an inch diameter) panetela cigars. For Fidel, these were the first in his new Cohiba brand, developed with perhaps Ché Guevara's help.
Fidel's & Zino's favourites, identically-sized 38 ring gauge cigars: First for Fidel the Cohiba Lancero, for Zino the Davidoff Classic No 1 (both 7.5" - 190mm); later, the slightly shorter Cohiba Corona Especial & Davidoff Classic No 2 - now Signature No 2 (both 6" - 152mm). Today, Cuba's Cohiba & Geneva's Davidoff remain the two leading prestige cigar brands, sold together in Davidoff's non-USA shops around the world.
"A cigar cannot truly be enjoyed without contemplation."
- Zino Davidoff
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