People often assume that choosing a cigar manufacturer is much like selecting any other supplier.

I believe the opposite is true. Suppliers can be replaced. Partners rarely can.

When Natalia and I decided to create Monte-Carlo Club®, we already knew where to look.

Latin America was never unfamiliar territory. Natalia grew up there and I spent many years working there.

More importantly, we built lasting friendships there. And in that part of the world, relationships often matter far more than business cards.

Before long, one name kept coming up. Victor Calvo. Our first meeting was pleasant and the second was more interesting. By the third, we already knew.

Of course, we talked about tobacco.

Yet, strangely enough, that isn't what I remember most.

What stayed with me was the way Victor spoke about his craft.

He trained as an engineer. That may sound unexpected in a factory where almost everything is still done by hand. In reality, it is precisely what makes him different.

He believes in process.

• Organisation.
• Precision.
• Attention to detail.

Yet he has never forgotten that this is where cigars are made. Not car parts.

I once asked him why he hadn't mechanised more of the production. His answer came without hesitation: "Because a great cigar is still made by human hands."

That single sentence probably tells you everything you need to know.

The first time we walk through the factory, I expect the aroma of tobacco to be the first thing that strikes me.

It isn't.

What catches my eye is order. The workshops are immaculate. The tobacco is perfectly organised. Every movement is deliberate. Even the silence seems part of the process.

I come from a family of industrialists. Perhaps that has shaped the way I look at factories. I have always believed that long before you examine what a company produces, you can learn a great deal simply by observing how it works.

Talking with the people on the factory floor confirms that first impression.

No one is trying to sell us anything. They simply speak about their work. With quiet pride.

Without exaggeration. As though quality were the most natural thing in the world. Of course, it isn't.

Some tobacco leaves wait for years before they are finally ready. A failed fermentation poor storage a fire.

Sometimes years of work can disappear overnight.

Excellence, therefore, is not an ambition. It is a necessity.

Looking back, we had come to visit a factory.

We left with a partner.

The distinction matters.

What we did not yet realise was that long before reaching that factory, a single tobacco leaf had already lived through several years of its own story.

That is where our next journey begins.

By Maxime Navarre Founder of Monte-Carlo Club®

In our next issue

We often speak of a tobacco leaf as though it were nothing more than a raw material.

The reality is quite different.

Some leaves spend years waiting before they finally become part of a cigar.

That is where we are going next.