Wessex Classic Virginia

When it comes to straight red Virginia that's meant to be smoked instead of blended, there's not a lot of competition - for me it came down to McClelland's 5100 or Wessex Brigade Classic Virginia, and Wessex won.

It's ready-rubbed, easy to maintain, cool smoking, and less sweet. Rich, deep, complex, earthy flavors all the way through, it makes me want to bake bread.

Wessex - Classic Virginia (Brigade).

It's quite a well broken flake, there's only a small proportion of the blend in need of further rubbing. The smell from the tin suggests a sharp topping of some kind, maybe citrus. Mine was a touch too moist, but not damp enough to avert having a bowl from the fresh tin.

The smoke doesn't taste like the usual Virginia blend, it has more depth to the flavour. The initial part of a bowl carries the sharp, slightly acidic, citrus note that emanated from the tin. It doesn't taste, in any way, cased, but gives lots of natural Virginia sharpness. This soon calms down giving way to a sweeter style of Virginia, with some dark fruit and bready notes. I've read a few comments about the temperature being too high, but I can't see a problem with it, even if I forcefully 'chug'. It gives a burn that has a medium speed, requiring very little attention.

The nicotine: mild to medium. Room-note: very pleasant.

I could see myself cellaring some Classic Virginia for when the urge for a Virginia takes me. Highly recommended:

Four stars.

Wessex Classic Virginia (Brigade ) - My tin is the current version that is selling now with the silver label . On the back of tin it says “A fairly strong ,dark Virginia flake with Perique “. It is a actually a broken flake- ready rubbed tobacco . Smokes like a Red Virginia with some lighter leaf . I would say closer to med than mild in nicotine. It starts out a little grassy with citrus and bread and a little sugary . Some dark fruit , spice and cinnamon come in shortly after and on down the bowl . I think it has a decent amount of Perique that you can taste and smell in the tin . I would classify it as a Vaper for sure . A savory natural tasting blend with maybe a wee bit of sugar added . I get a little Apricot or peach like flavor sometimes. A very pleasant smoke for a spring or summer day with a little kick . I like it and would buy more . It burns great and ready to smoke right out of the tin . No bite whatsoever . It burns a little quick but never gets hot . Puff away . I give it 3 1/2 upped to a 4 .

I love this tobacco! It has a sweet, buttery taste that deepens as the smoker progresses through the bowl. I think this is the sweetest Virginia that I have yet smoked, and I burn through a tin of this stuff quite quickly. It is more or less my go-to smoke. Go, buy, and smoke the hell out of this sublime leaf. I am going to burn some now.

Consists of broken flakes of dark brown color. Tin aroma is very intense and pungent: tangy and sweet with fermentation aromas and citrus notes, quite typical of the Kohlase&Kopp style of dark Virginias (i.e. Rattray, Robert McConnell). Moisture is at a level which the tobacco can be smoked as is and also leaves room for drying if one wishes to. The tobacco is of course processed, cooked, pressed and there seems to be some casing and sweetening but it is minimal and, in any case, very congruent to the natural tobacco taste. Loads and lights easily though it needs some tamping before you get going since the tobacco expands considerably when lit. The tobacco itself is very flavorful, juicy and above all tangy and gains in complexity as the bowl progresses. It is bitter-sweet with notes of molasses, citrus fruit and fermentation notes. I do not find it particularly spicy, but there is some spice and cooked dark fruit probably from the Perique (if there is any). Strength is medium and nicotine is satiating. I like this tobacco a lot, though its quite intense flavor and satiating character does not commend it for repeated use during the day.

I lucked into a stash of this at a tobacco store that dates all of their price tags, and it was dated 090, which translates to September 2000 (and still had the prices from back then). I picked up 4 tins of this and upon opening the first one was greeted with sugar crusted broken flakes, with the hypnotizing aroma of hay and dried figs. This tobacco smoulders in a pipe at a perfect burn rate, delivering deliciously sweet notes of buttered popcorn, bread, and a hint of mild cigar-like character. This is a truly outstanding Virginia. I have no idea what it is like when it is fresh, but nearly 12 years of age have treated this weed well. I am literally hooked on aged Virginias at this point, and if I find any more of this I am going to stock up.

Exquisite and complex Viriginia which taste of hay, orange peel and green apples throughout the bowl. It reminds me a lot of IRC Flake, and both are two of my favorites Virginias. The Wessex product is more fit for a thoughtful smoke, as it is a little more complex than Iwan Ries' masterpiece.

Okay. out of the pouch and into the fire!!

Not sure what to make of this one. Not the greatest tobacco, but not bad either. Not overwhelmingly flavorful, not intricately layered, not deep and brooding, but not lacking either, in any way.

This weed impresses me as a good solid middle of the road tobacco. Seems to be mostly red virginias, but I detect some lighter and darker bits in the tin. It is rubbed out but not overly so. The tin aroma is straight tobacco, and quite nice as tin aromas go. As a matter of fact, I could sniff this one all day long, as it smells wonderful.

Upon lighting, this is not a highly remarkable smoke. But it is an excellent, hard working tobacco, that just tastes like a good honest virginia smoke. Sure, there are more varied and exotic and fuller tobacco's than this one, but there is something about this that keeps me coming back. Perhaps it is its unpretentious honest and hardworking flavor. No tricks, no holds barred, no high flying shenanigans, just good honest tobacco flavor, that gets better and better as the bowl progresses.

And for all this, a rating of highly recommended, not for what it doesn't do, but for what it does so simply, so easily, and so elegantly!!

This review will discuss McClelland's Christmas Cheer 2003, McCranie's Red Flake and Wessex Classic Virginia.

Christmas Cheer 2003 (CC) is a red Virginia made from a 1998 Old Belt crop while McCranie?s Red Flake (RF) was made from a 1996 North Carolina crop. CC and RF are both medium-to-full-bodied.

CC fails to deliver the consistently deeper red Virginia flavor that RF offers. While CC has bursts of RF?s consistently dusky red Virginia flavor-a flavor that in comparison is both darker and deeper than a signature brown Virginia, Rattrays Brown Clunee-such bursts are more atypical than constant. This is not to say that CC is not an enjoyable tobacco but simply that in the realm of red Virginia, RF is the winner.

RF?s tin notes state that softness is this tobacco?s chief characteristic. While I don?t disagree with this statement, I would add that RF?s deeper, richer flavor outdoes the competition. One wonders how the considerable tobacco wisdom of McClelland, whose most notable entry in the Virginia arena, its Christmas Cheer series, allowed itself to be content with anything less than a product just shy of perfection. Yet perhaps this has something to due with the time constraints of finding fine leaf in time to process it and still meet Christmas Cheer?s traditional release at the RTDA show.

We then come to Wessex Classic Virginia (CV), medium-to-full bodied, blended by Kohlhase, Kopp und Co. It has more in common with RF than CC and is comprised solely of mature Red Virginia. It has less flavor than RF but I tend to believe this a choice of the blender, not a flaw. It throbs with the rich, basal note of a curing process designed to produce a no-nonsense, straightforward, aged tobacco. Little complexity in comparison to CC, the most complex of these three tobaccos-if any Virginia can be called complex-just a delicious, singular, deep, red Virginia flavor. In comparison to CC, it has little of that tobacco?s grassy, reedy flavor components.

Ranking, in descending order: RF, CV, CC.