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Although I have reviewed a CAO cigar in the past, more specifically the CAO LX2 Rob, let’s do a quick recap of the company’s history. CAO, which stands for the initials of the company’s owner, Cano A. Ozgener, is family owned and has been around since the 1980s. CAO is well-respected in the industry and produces a variety of cigars that are distributed all around the world. With that out of the way, we will review four cigars from the company: the Italia Ciao, the Sopranos Soldier, the America Potomac, and the Black VR Totem. Let’s get started, shall we?
CAO Italia Ciao
The CAO Italia Ciao is a tribute to, you guessed it, Italy. While Italy is certainly famous for its wines, among many other things, it’s not as renowned for its tobacco. CAO hopes to shed a little bit of light on Italy’s tobacco growing capabilities with this full-bodied smoke.
The CAO Italia Ciao measures 5x56 as a robusto. There are four other sizes available, however. Its filler is a mix of tobacco from Peru, Nicaragua, and Italy, with the latter being the highlight of the blend. The Italia Ciao uses a special Italian Habano seed tobacco grown exclusively for the company in the Benevento region of southern Italy. This tobacco has its history, as it was brought to Italy all the way from Cuba over four decades ago. It has a Honduran binder, as well as a Cuban-seed Honduran Maduro wrapper. The cigar is handmade at the CAO Fabrica de Tabacos in Danli, Honduras.
The appearance of the CAO Italia Ciao is highlighted by its very attractive band located near the head of the cigar. The band is so good in fact, that it won CAO the 2005 European SAPPI Award for its design, earning the company the top spot over the 2,000 plus designs that were submitted. The band bears the CAO logo as well as the Italia moniker, and is adorned by the Italian flag colors of red, white, and green, as well as some light blue and gold thrown in for extra effect. The same awesome design is also characteristic to the boxes of 20 that you can purchase. The exterior of the cigar has some veins running throughout and has a rough, semi-dark tone. Prior to lighting, you can get an earthy scent from the cigar and a bit of a chocolaty taste.
