Cornell & Diehl Sansepolcro

I just finished two tins over the last month or so. Boy this is good stuff. Yikes. I live in dread of C&D running out of it. It reminds me a bit of dark bird's eye crossed with something like old dark fired or kendall kentucky. Its ribbon cut, which it the only thing I don't love about it. But it does make it easy to pack and smoke. Its got a pretty big nic hit. Its a nice all day smoke if you can handle the nicotine, and I can ....ergo i smoked these two tins pretty fast. The flavor is smokey but not burnt. Its more a tangy bitey sort of spiced smoke. All tobacco all the way. Great stuff.

Grassy, semi-sweet with a subtle spice note. Not your regular dark fire flavor. Very nice indeed! Darn near perfect moisture and cut straight from the tin. You would suspect this to be a strongman blend but it is toned down to a high medium in both taste and nicotine. I believe this will be a super blend after it spends a while in the cellar, will definitely get more for just that purpose! Excellent blend C&D😎

Tin 1221 of 8000 has a note of bread, Rasins, and mild smoke. The tan, brown and dark brown broken flakes have a reddish hue and needs only minor attention on the few bigger flakes. Tobacco is a little moist, no drying needed. Burns relatively slow with multiple relights. The strength is medium to strong and nic is medium. No flavoring detected. Taste is medium to full and consistent, with notes of wood, earth, cigar, slightly grass, slightly floral, mildly sweet bread, mildly dried bitter fruit, mildly tart, mildly lemon and a very peppery retro. It seems like Italian dark fired and Red Virginias are playing high stakes poker while smoking cigars. Room note is tolerable, and aftertaste is great.

I finally got to popping one of the tins of Sansepolcro I purchased upon its release. I am a sucker for blends with Burley and Cigar Leaf, so this one seemed right up my alley.

One thing not noted in the description is that there is a topping on this blend and it distinctly includes an Elderberry liquer and I could have sworn the description here on TR did once say this. This is the reason for the floral essence as far as I can tell. It almost comes off as minty to my tastes. It also makes this blend somewhat unique for this type of blend. It brings to mind only one other blend that I would say is close and that is Perettis Cuban Blend which I believe has a sort of mint topping. Smoking Sansepolcro though has me thinking that CB may also be topped with elderberry. I wish that I could have smoked these back to back as it has been a while since I have tried CB

Having said all of that this is an enjoyable blend, that is certainly burley forward to my tastes, but I feel the elderberry is a touch too much. Maybe it is because I like Perettis Cuban Blend so much that I nit-pick this one. I really don't have anything bad to say about it. It is the perfect moisture content in the tin, it packs nice, burns great, doesn't bite, but after all of that, I am left thinking that I would rather be smoking Peretti's Cuban Blend. It is this reason that I would put this at about a 2.5 star, but I will round up to 3, since it is unique and I really can't find any real fault with it.

At my somewhat local pipe and cigar store I purchased this a few weeks ago. The description says it is blended with Italian dark-fired florets. So, I did what most people do and googled floret. “one of the small flowers making up a composite flower head.” My first thought was that are they blending it with the tobacco flowers? It took watching this video to learn the truth. tps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOQhqV0bM6E. The florets are the end tips cut off the machine made dry dark fired cigars such as Toscano. The tips are sometimes used as pipe tobacco in Italy. From what I understand watching this informative video the current blend does not have the florets but rather just the leaf strips that are grown in the Sansepolcro area. I thought this blend would be darker since it has dark fired leaf but found it to be more medium/light medium reddish-brown ribbon. It has the usual sweet Virginia tin note. When smoking I got (to me) more of the VA profile and very little of the cigar. It is good tasting but not sure if this flavor profile is for me. Nonetheless, I would give this one a recommendation to try. Apparently, I had bought another tin of this sometime ago and forgot. So, I have a backup to age. Tin date 051420. 6097/8000.

I'm reviewing tin 2221/8000 of the new 2020 lot which was released in June 2020. The tin was canned on my birthday 05/08/2020 which means it had to be good right?

I tried some of the original smaller release the first time it came out a couple of times but never wrote a review, but also didn't stock up on any at the time.

The ribbon cuts are a mixture of light and dark. The tin note to me was heavy on the virginia "Hay" side. The moisture straight out of the tin was great and didn't require extra drying for my preference. The ribbon cut makes it easy to pack, prepare and light.

The taste to me started with the high notes of the grassy/bright virginias that i love during the summer. Building up through that (and overpowering it at times) is a spiciness which tasted in my mouth peppery. The pepper continued to build through each bowl.. but seemed about half way to reach a point of balance where it was not overpowering.

I'm not a big cigar smoker, except for sweet ones from time to time. Usually that leathery/pepper isn't what I want in a relaxing smoke and I usually tire of cigars before I finish them. I can see cigar smokers really enjoying this blend though.

I've made it through about 5 bowls in different shaped pipes and find it smokes the best in taller bowls and really great in my radiator pipes. Very little moisture at the end.

Wife thought I was smoking a cigar in the house when she smelled the roomnote.

Sansepolcro comes out of the tin fairly dry and smokable; no drying time needed. It has a sweet earthy cigar like fragrance right out of the tin. You can smell the Virginia's mixed with dark-fired florets. The dark-fired florets are are not used heavy handed more as a condiment. The smoke is not like smoking a cigar. It has sweet robust flavor, a bit earthy with savory cigar like nuances.

This is delicious. Bought several more tins when it came out again in 2019.

3rdGuy

Beautiful blend of dark fired florets and Red Virginia. Usually cigar leaf is added for body more than flavor but you can really appreciate the florets in this. Curious to see how it ages. May get interesting if the cigar drops back a hair and the Red moves up. In any case it is a solid blend. Can be packed fairly tight for a longer smoke without issue. Lights and burns well.

First sampled at my pipe club at Liberty Tobacco in San Diego. Based on that sample purchased 2 tins from Watch City to round out an order. Flavorful and enjoyable. Particularly enjoyed the taste of the dark Italian. Similar to Savenelli’s 1040 which I found a little richer and smoother.