History of Davidoff

Zino Davidoff was born on March 11, 1906 in Ukraine. He was the eldest of four children born to Jewish tobacco merchant, Henri Davidoff. Even in his own autobiographical writings, the facts on Zino's youth are a bit hazy, as he was quite young during this time and could only piece together some stories of his youth. His parents were either cigar merchants or cigarette manufacturers in Kiev. Fleeing the political turmoil and anti-Semitism prevalent in Russia, his parents left some of their family behind and emigrated to Geneva, Switzerland in 1911 for a better life and opened their own tobacconist shop in 1912. Finishing school in 1924, he went to Latin America to learn about the tobacco trade, spending time in such places as Argentina, Brazil, and finally Cuba where he spent two years working on a plantation and first encountered Cuban cigars.

Returning to Switzerland around 1930, he took over his parents' shop. What had originally been a modest tobacco shop grew into a rich business during and after World War II. Neutral Switzerland was spared much of the havoc wreaked elsewhere in Europe and became a haven for wealthy tobacco customers. Zino was particularly successful in marketing the Hoyo de Monterrey Châteaux Series of Cuban cigars created for Zurich cigar distributor A Dürr Co. in the 1940s and named after great Bordeaux wines. Around this time, Zino is also credited by many as having invented the first desktop cigar humidor, in order to preserve cigars at the same conditions of humidity and temperature under which they were rolled in Havana. Davidoff also had success writing several books on cigar smoking and Cuban cigar brands.
In 1970, Zino sold his small but highly successful tobacco shop in Geneva to the Max Oettinger Group. Zino stayed on as Davidoff’s ambassador until his death in 1994 at the age of 87. He was survived by his wife and daughter, who remained in Switzerland and by his siblings that had since moved to other parts of the world, mainly North America. Till his last moments, Zino an avid family man, sought out to find his lost family history back in the Soviet Union and then the emerging independent states of Russia and Ukraine. Unfortunately, many historical documents had been lost and so had his search. Not much information exists on their whereabouts, but through saved notes by Zino, it has been speculated that many had defected to North America in the early to mid 70's, some under new identities and family names.In August 2006, Imperial Tobacco acquired the worldwide Davidoff cigarette trademark from its owners, Tchibo Holding AG for £368 million (€540 million). Imperial Tobacco Group had been the licensee of the worldwide Davidoff cigarette trademark since its acquisition of Reemtsma in 2002.

The cigarettes range includes the Magnum, Supreme, Classic, Mild, Lights, Magnum Lights, Slims, Ultra lights, Menthol, Menthol Lights, One and Gold. Rothmans, Benson & Hedges of Canada began importing Davidoff cigarettes for sale in the Canadian market in April 2007.

The Oettinger Davidoff Group owns the worldwide Davidoff trademark for tobacco products other than cigarettes. Davidoff cigars continue to be produced in the Dominican Republic, under the direction of cigar blender Hendrik "Henke" Kelner. Since moving to the Dominican Republic, most of the vitolas were retained, although the Chateaux series was renamed the "Grand Cru" series and the names switched from wine estates names to simply numbers, and the Dom Perignon was discontinued. Davidoff has also added an Aniversario series, a Millennium series, and a Special series of figurados to its lineup, along with numerous limited edition and yearly special releases. Davidoff also produces a line of cigars known as "Zino" and a line of cigarillos.

Beyond tobacco products, Davidoff has expanded to include under its brand such items as pipes and humidors.

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