Vina Carmen Cigar Smoker of the Year. Every year Boisdale and Vina Carmen host an event in London where they award cigars, producers, communicators are more during a dinner at the Boisdale Cigar Terrace.

During the event, there was room for an auction. This year the auction raised 30.000 British Pounds that will be used to restore Ernest Hemingway’s 1955 Chrysler New York­er con­vert­ible. This classic car is currently at the Fin­ca Vigia Cuba/Ernest Hemingway Museum in Cuba. Finca Vigia was the home of Ernest Hemingway from 1939 until 1960.

The award winners

Several winners of awards were announced during the dinner. The Cigar Sommelier of the year 2019 according to Vina Carmen & Boisdale is Giuliano Santilli of The Arts Club. Cigar Communicator of the year is Jimmy McGhee of Hunters & Frankau. Hunters & Frankau is the exclusive Habanos distributor for the United Kingdom. And Habanos was awarded the title Cigar Producer of the year. This is irony, as Habanos is just the distributor for Cuban cigars, yet does not produce the cigars. 

The cigar of the year comes from Nicaragua. The award committee selected the Plasencia Alma Del Campo Tribu Robusto as the Cigar the year 2019. Rodrigo Medina from Plasencia Cigars was at the dinner to receive the award for the Plasencia family. The lifetime achievement award went to humidor builder Daniel Marshall, who’s been making top-notch humidors and accessories for over 30 years. But he also has his line of private label cigars made by the Cigar of the year 2019 winners Plasencia Cigars. And Dolph Lundgren is the Cigar Smoker of the Year 2019. He follows actor Chris Noth, who was awarded this title last year. Previous winners are Simon Le Bon, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jonathon Ross, Kelsey Grammer, and Tamer Hassan.