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Learn · WrappersNatural, Claro, and Colorado Wrappers
Natural, claro, and the colorado family are the light and middle wrapper shades... the stretch of the color scale where most of the world's cigars actually live.
The classes, in order
The wrapper color scale runs from green candela to near-black oscuro. This page covers the middle:
- Claro: pale gold to light tan. Classic shade-grown territory... Connecticut Shade is the poster leaf.
- Colorado Claro: light brown with the first hint of red.
- Colorado: the reddish-brown center of the scale, often oily and aromatic.
- Colorado Maduro: deeper brown, a half-step from true maduro.
Nobody's eyes agree perfectly on the borders, and makers use the words loosely. Treat them as neighborhoods, not property lines.
Where "natural" fits
Natural isn't one shade. It's trade shorthand for "not candela, not maduro"... a leaf cured and fermented the ordinary amount, landing anywhere from claro to colorado maduro. When a band offers "Natural or Maduro," it's telling you which fermentation path the wrapper took, not naming two plants. You'll also run into the old import terms: English Market Selection (EMS) for the browns, American Market Selection for the green stuff covered on the candela page.
What the middle band smokes like
Generalizing across half the spectrum is a losing game, but tendencies exist: claro leans mild, grassy, and dry, and the colorado range picks up nuts, cedar, spice, and aroma as it darkens. Sun-grown wrappers... thicker and toastier from ripening in full light... often land in the colorado band, which is why "sun grown" on a band usually predicts a reddish-brown cigar with some muscle.
You'll see it on
Two sun-grown examples from the review pile: the My Father Flor de las Antillas Toro, a Nicaraguan puro with a sun-grown wrapper, rated a Hand-Me-One (2/4)... and the Perdomo Double Aged 12 Year Sun Grown Epicure, rated a Not Even Free (1/4). Same wrapper vocabulary, very different verdicts. The shade names the look, not the outcome.