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Having really gotten into cuban cigars only recently - and becoming obsessed with every aspect of them - I wanted to get some more experienced comments on a theory I've developed about what makes a good cigar for the newbie. Everything I've read about the topic has been the contradiction of my own experience. For one, it seems light bodied and flavored CCs - eg. ERDM Choix Supreme, Hoyo anything - are always put up as great smokes for beginners, while we're instructed to steer away from the Partagas range, for example, until our palette has matured. But I look at CCs in a similar way to wine. Having grown up (so to speak) on big shiraz and Cabernet Sauvignon in Australia, I quickly developed an understanding of what flavours can be found in 'fermented grape juice', giving me an idea what to look for in lesser bodied wines like Pinot Noir. It took time to appreciate the subtleties in PN but now I love the complexity of them. Same thing with CCs. I followed the recommendations by all the 'experts' and got stuck into the HDM and ERDM marcas at the start only to struggle to pick out the flavours I kept hearing should be in there. I said 'stuff it' and lit up a Partagas Series D No4. It changed my life. There's the flavours I've been hearing about, I thought to myself. I tried a few other medium to full bodies (Varnished 8-9-8, Monte Edmundo etc) and discovered it was no fluke. Clearly I needed a punch in the face before I could appreciate a slap. Since then I've gone back to the formers and can honestly say I now find flavours previously foreign to me. In fact the HDM Epicure 2 is now one of my favourite CCs to have with an afternoon coffee. Could it be that we should be telling beginners to have a crack at medium to full body CCs early on instead of scaring them off that 'big' is for seasoned smokers? Or have I - as I suspect - got it all wrong?