| When this blend first came out in the early 1990s, I was on an aromatics binge anyway, so I bought a pouch the first time I saw it. This must have been one of the very first wine-flavoured blends for a long time; at least at the time I cannot remember any manufacturer daring to put anything less than distilled spirits into their blends.
The pouch aroma was wonderful, anyway. The Black Cavendish (I had just come off the pure BC blends) worked wonderfully with the dry wine, and for me, at the time, this blend contained an unusually high proportion of VA (I was a college student and usually bought the cheapest stuff I could get...)
Anyway, in the pouch, this blend was pretty moist at first, the cut relatively wide. I'd need two or three matches to get it going, but once it was on fire, I didn't need to relight until close to the very end. The taste was sweet from the VA and BC, had caramel notes at the end (that would be the Burley...) and beautifully off-set the sweetness with a nice, dry note that I will have to attribute to the wine flavouring.
It didn't turn sour on me towards the end, as many aromatics tend to do, and it was manageable in medium to large bowls without too much effort going into maintenance.
I did smoke a few pouches of Napa Valley back then; these days, I tend to drink the wines used to flavour this blend while smoking tobaccos far stronger than this. It wasn't bad at all; just for me, these days, way too weak. I'd say 3.5 stars for beginners and aromatics afficionados.
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| O.K, you would like to impress your fellows with a wonderful smelling tabacco - with this one you can't go wrong, I also love to smell the pouch aroma.
But mainly I smoke for myself and my pleasure, and here I get a warm flat and artifical feeling. The boring, mellow smoke throughout the bowl reminds me of a gummi bear, which I rather eat than smoke.....
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