Handrolled Parodi cigars were last available in 1962, yet the consumers did not seem to mind the move to machine manufacturing. In fact, demand increased. By 1963 - the year I snuck my first DeNobili Popular from my grandfather's pack and smoked it behind his barn - the Petri group was ready to throw in the towel. They sold their cigar making assets to the Suraci family. Total market dominance had been achieved. The Avanti company flourished.
But then the negative factors that affected all cigar sales throughout the country began to take their toll at Avanti. Sales began to dwindle, then plummet.
"There were a lot more family members who were a part of the company then," recounts Tony Jr. "We began to diversify and buy companies that had nothing to do with tobacco. There was a plastic playing card company, an imported giftware company, and a company that made handpainted trays and wastebaskets. Meanwhile, the cigar business continued its downward spiral, and something had to be done."
By 1982, the company was producing and selling no more than 15 million cigars annually. They faced a choice: either downsize or close up shop. Suraci Sr. and Dominic Keating removed themselves from the non-cigar businesses. They downsized the cigar operation and moved to their present facility, with a smaller work force. In 1983, fresh from college, Tony Jr. joined the company to help out with marketing and sales.
Throughout the 1980s, the company struggled to rebuild their market share. Gradually, sales began to achieve their present levels. Chain drugstores and retail tobacco shops became their main retail outlets, with sales divided about equally between the two. "It was a weird time. It seemed like the only bumps up in sales we got were when one chain of drug stores would acquire another," says Tony Jr.
Then, a few years later, the cigar boom was in full swing. "The rage for premium cigars has been a help to us," says Tony Jr. "But so far, it hasn't created the interest in our products that I believe it should."
One positive effect from the interest in all things cigar-related came in the form of a magazine article on the movie mogul Francis Ford Coppola. "I was looking at this picture of Mr. Coppola in a magazine, and there he is, smoking one of our cigars." Ever the go-getter, Tony Jr. sent along a box of DeNobili Toscani and wrote Coppola a letter expressing his thanks for the exposure. "Then I forgot all about it," he said. That was in 1995.
Six months later, Tony Jr. got a call from Coppola himself. After a 45-minute phone conversation, Avanti had a new customer. Coppola wanted to sell his own label of cigars at his Napa Valley winery. He designed the packaging and named the line "Carmine" in memory of his composer - conductor father, Carmine Coppola. The green and gold five pack of Ammezzati-style cheroots bears the slogan "Carmen Thrifty", with a G-clef and musical staff lines.
