Fall 2020 PCA Magazine

20 PCA The Magazine | AUTUMN 2020 PREMIUMCIGARS.ORG easier when you’re selling a stellar product, and the La Barba Red has proved its mettle in the competitive boutique market—and on tobacconists’ shelves. “The Red certainly propelled us to another level,” Bellatto says. Eight years on, the La Barba brand ranks among the names of very respected boutique brands. This year Bellatto expects to produce close to half a million cigars, “with a large bulk of them being La Barba Red,” he says. That’s quite a few sticks, but La Barba’s boutique status is reinforced by its catalog. The company offers regular production of just four cigar lines: the Red, the Purple, the Ricochet CrüMexi-Sol and the Ricochet Crü Oscuro, each ANTHONY BELLATTO, who founded La Barba Cigars in 2012, grew up in the industry “from the literal bottom,” he says. His formative years were spent working in his grandfather’s and father’s stores “in a basement built in the 1800s with 6 inches of standing water.” But it was an educational upbringing. The father and grandfather were entrepreneurs, so Bellatto came by his enterprising spirit honestly. “It was in my blood,” he says. “After I finished college I worked with my dad to open a store of my own in Niles, Ohio. My dad still has three locations to this day. He taught me the importance of being patient, which can be very hard for me. He also taught me the importance of good relationships, and how to spot fads and not chase them. He emphasized that a great product will stand the test of time. And he taught me to believe in myself and to believe in my brand, no matter what.” Over the years, Bellatto also honed his gustatory discernment through formal studies in wine and spirits. “After I graduated from college I fell in love with wine,” he says. “We were looking to add a beer and wine program to one of the retail stores, so I started researching and I found that in Cleveland there was a ‘Wine and Spirits Education Trust,’ or WSET-certified school.” He went on to become a WSET-certified sommelier, an achievement that gave him a whole new understanding of his own palate. This experience helped propel Bellatto in his journey toward the crafting of fine cigars. Bellatto took all of this learning onboard and ultimately put it to use via a make-or-break investment. “I cashed in a $5,000 life insurance policy to start La Barba,” he says. “It was all the money I had, and if it failed, I would also.” Fortunately, staving off failure is BY WI LL I AM C . NELSON The Blend A available in four sizes. Still, it’s really been the Red— the company’s first and mainstay product—that has driven La Barba’s success and made development of additional lines feasible. Of the Red, Bellatto says: “The blend was developed in 2012 by me and Robert Caldwell at the old Wynwood Cigar Factory in Miami. It took us about two years to develop the initial blend. Originally it was made inMiami, and then we switched manufacturing to Honduras, and eventually, in 2014, we moved production to the Dominican Republic, where it is now.” Today La Barba has all of its lines made at Tabacalera La Barba Cigars Red — A Boutique Cigar with an Outsized Reputation