Oliva V lancero

[Don Fernando]

This Oliva V lancero has been aging in my humidor for little over 2 years and I finally decided to light this 7 x 38. The V series is a Nicaraguan puro with some specially fermented Jalapa valley ligero and a nice dark, oily and almost vein less smooth Habano sun grown wrapper. The construction feels good, like you can expect with any Oliva. The predraw is just fine and tells me what I can expect from this cigar: pepper, lots of pepper. The aroma is a mild acidy barnyard smell.



The first flavor is a full, strong peppery leather flavor. The white pepper flavor is strong and pungent but fortunately it becomes tolerable after a bit and the leather flavor is better noticeable. The pepper still is the dominant flavor though.



After 2 inch, when the leather has gone, I can taste some chocolate but again, covered in a lot of white pepper. Halfway the chocolate is replaced by some wood, wood that grows a bit in strength at the 2/3rd mark but still loses the battle with the pepper.



I get a lot of beautiful thick white smoke from this cigar. The ash is light gray but not very firm. The draw is fine and so is the burn



Would I buy this cigar again? No, I will stick to the other vitolas of the Oliva V series; the lancero is too much of a pepper bomb for me

Appearance: 8 / 10
Construction: 8 / 10
Draw: 7 / 10
Smoke & ash: 8 / 10
Burn: 7 / 10
Aroma (first part) 6 / 10
Aroma (middle part) 7 / 10
Aroma (last part) 8 / 10