Pasquale Cusano, founder and publisher of Nuvo magazine, recently launched Montrecristo, an upper-class-lifestyle magazine with a focus on the Vancouver region.

Jim Tobler is the editor of Montecristo. Tobler was the editor of Nuvo for seven years and left the magazine in 2006 to pursue other writing projects.

“When we [Pasquale and Tobler] first discussed the possibility of doing a regional magazine that would be a positive player within the community with a mandate to talk about philanthropy, responsible corporate citizenship, the arts community and be kind of celebratory about all of the cultural development of the region, I thought, well that is a great idea,” Tobler said.

The editorial content, which holds 65% of editorial to ad ratio, features articles on food and wine, travel, technology, business, design, fashion and the arts. Some of the articles that the magazine has published since launching in December include profiles of artist Barry Oretsky, BC Attorney General Wally Oppal, designer Hajnalka Mandula and features on the children hospice Canuck Place and the virtual surgery center at the University of British Columbia.

Montecristo is printed by Metropolitian Fine Printers in Vancouver on 80lbs matte finish paper from post-consumer sources. It is an oversized magazine (9.5” x 11.5”).

“With that size of a page, you can play around a lot with white space and images, and get plenty of text on a page, which of course I like,” Tobler said.

The quarterly magazine has a circulation of 30,000 and is mostly distributed for free to affluent households, prestigious hotels and private airlines. Some 3,000 copies are on newsstands with a cover price of $8, while a one-year subscription goes for $25. Disticor distributes to the newsstands and Kirk Integrated Marketing handles all household and postal distribution.

The cost of a full-page, four-color ad is $8,950 and Montecristo only runs full-page ads. The magazine has so far attracted such advertising clients as Chanel, Hugo Boss, Mercedes Bens, Audi, Rolex and Hublot.