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Zino Davidoff was born on 11 March 1906 and dedicated his life to cigars until his death in 1994 at the age of 88 |
SWITZERLAND. Oettinger Davidoff Group is celebrating the 100th anniversary of the birth of Zino Davidoff, the founder of the world-renowned cigar company.
Zino Davidoff was born on 11 March 1906 and dedicated his life to cigars until his death in 1994 at the age of 88.
To mark the milestone, a biography has been published by German cigar aficionado Dieter H Wirtz. An English version of the book is available from June.
A special cigar has also been produced, which will be sold in the company’s domestic market stores.
The story of Zino Davidoff
When Zino Davidoff was born on 11 March 1906 in the Ukrainian city of Kiev, the first smell to greet him was the aroma of the oriental tobacco from which his father Henri secretly rolled cigarettes for friends despite official bans. At the age of five, Zino and his family fled from the pogroms in Russia. The Davidoffs reached Geneva in 1911, where his father opened a tobacco shop on the Place des Philosophes that rapidly became a popular meeting point for exiled enemies of the Czar. One of them stuck in the young boy’s memory, because he did not pay for his cigarettes and his father did not dare to demand the money for them. The impecunious connoisseur was called Wladimir Illjitsch Uljanow, who later adopted the name “Lenin”.
After leaving school, Zino decided to see the world. Armed with an introduction from one of his father’s friends, he set sail for South America, moneyless and with just a dinner jacket. Shortly after arrival in Argentina, Davidoff – a stateless person – had his passport stolen. The local authorities took Davidoff to be a diplomat and issued him with new ID documents without further ado. That’s how Zino gained his Argentinean citizenship that was later to be followed by Swiss citizenship.
For five years, starting in 1925, Zino worked in tobacco plantations and cigar factories in Argentina, Brazil and Cuba, where he discovered his great love of tobacco that was to last all his life. In Havana he learnt about the cultivation, storage and exploitation of the Cuban Puro. On his return to Geneva in 1930, he expanded his father’s business with a cigar department and a cellar, in which the valuable tobaccos could be stored without loss of quality. This forerunner of today’s humidor was the first of its kind in the world. The same year Zino married the daughter of a family friend who later bore him a daughter.
Davidoff’s tobacco shop earned a reputation mainly through importing Cuban cigars. In the Great Depression of the 1930s, business was at first slow, but the shop in Geneva was soon regarded as the world’s premier address for Havana cigar lovers. During the Second World War, Davidoff benefited from his good relationships with the Cubans. They allowed him to take charge of their cigar warehouse in Paris before the Germans invaded France, with the result that for a considerable time Davidoff was the only dealer able to supply Havana cigars. During the war, aficionados paid regular visits to Geneva to purchase their preferred cigars from him.
After the end of the Second World War, the Cubans set out with Davidoff to conquer the European market, which was dominated by German, Dutch and Swiss manufacturers. Zino surprised his partners in Havana with the idea of naming selected cigars after the Grand Cru wines of Bordeaux. With this began the rise of an empire that even the Cuban revolution in 1959 failed to disturb. In recognition of his great service, his Cuban friends offered to produce his own line for him in 1970. This was the moment the renowned Davidoff No 1, Davidoff No 2 and the Ambassadrice were born. However, Zino Davidoff never met Fidel Castro.
Around that time, in 1967, the first edition of the “The Connoisseur’s Book of the Cigar” appeared. His compendium became a standard work for cigar smokers with more than 200,000 copies sold in different languages.
At the peak of his career in 1970, Zino Davidoff sold the business to the old-established family company Oettinger from Basel. Its head, Dr Ernst Schneider, continued to work closely with his friend Zino and nominated the charismatic founder as ambassador of the Davidoff brand.
In the early 1990s, following an evaluation of various tobacco-growing areas, the two friends decided in favour of the Dominican Republic. The new-generation Davidoff cigars were born.
On 14 January 1994, Zino Davidoff passed away in Geneva at the age of 88. In his obituaries, the world mourned a man who had dedicated his life to tobacco and cigars. A bon vivant with a fine sense of humour, his credo was: “Smoke less, but better and longer – make a cult of it, even a philosophy.”
For details of Davidoff cigars, contact Christian Vonthron, Vice President, Head of Travel Retail, Oettinger Imex, Davidoff International Division, Nauenstrasse 73, CH-4002, Basel, Switzerland, tel: +41 61 279 3636, fax: +41 61 279 3608, e-mail christian.vonthron@davidoff.ch
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