Brands
Oliva
The story of the Oliva family begins in 1886, when Melanio Oliva grew his first tobacco in Cuba. His grandson Gilberto left the island after the Revolution, worked as a tobacco trader in Spain and Central America — and in Nicaragua eventually found the terroir that reminded him of the old homeland. In 1995 he founded the Oliva Cigar Co. with his son Gilberto Jr.; the first cigars were still produced in the factory of Nestor Plasencia, and soon after in their own manufactory in Estelí.
The house’s style is closely bound to the Nicaraguan tobacco the family grows in large quantities on their own land: bold, spicy Ligadas with a high Ligero content, cleanly constructed and deliberately positioned for accessibility. Among the well-known ranges are the Serie G and Serie O; the breakthrough came in 2006 with the Serie V, whose offshoot Serie V Melanio — named after the family patriarch — was named cigar of the year by the US magazine Cigar Aficionado in 2014.
In 2016 the family sold the company to the Belgian family house J. Cortès; production continues in Estelí. The name Melanio on the anilla is a reminder of where it all began: on a tobacco field in nineteenth-century Cuba.