The story of Arturo Fuente’s Chateau de la Fuente tobacco estate is by now a familiar one to most smokers; in 1980, Arturo Fuente patriarch Don Carlos Fuente Senior decided to move his family’s business to the Dominican Republic.
While business was respectable, his son, present-day Fuente boss Don “Carlito” Fuente Junior, was bothered by something a French retailer said to him in passing — that Arturo Fuente was not a “maker” of cigars, but instead was merely an “assembler” of them because the tobaccos he used in many cases came from other sources, including ones that were overseas.
Determined to correct this perceived slight, in the early 1990s, Carlito purchased 37 acres of land in the Dominican Republic’s Bonao Valley from legendary tobacco grower Angel Oliva. There, he proceeded to grow some of Arturo Fuente’s finest tobaccos, and in the process, he not only altered the direction of his own company, but sent shock waves through the entire cigar industry. The famous Chateau de la Fuente (which has since expanded to more than 300 acres) was born.
Now, Carlito could say that, indeed, Arturo Fuente was a “maker” of cigars.
This specific cigar — the Chateau Fuente — makes use of tobaccos grown on the Fuente family’s private reserves at the Chateau for its fillers and its binder. This cedar-wrapped vitola — the Double Corona-sized Royal Salute, with a distinctive black band at its foot — is the longest (7.625 inches) in the Chateau Fuente line and very nearly the widest, with a ring gauge of 54, producing a lengthy and indulgent burn time. This version of the Royal Salute comes with an ebony, oily, sun-grown Ecuadorean wrapper that endows these cigars with a sweet, ripe taste.
Featuring superb construction, a smooth draw and an even burn, these medium-to-full-bodied, medium-to-full-strength sticks impart rich yet well-balanced, sweet and spicy notes of tamarind, cloves, vanilla, pepper, citrus and roasted walnuts, on top of a wood, earth, leather, and creamy cocoa/chocolate core.
Cigar Aficionado rated these cigars two points shy of 90. If you haven’t yet sampled the AF Chateau Fuente line, you owe it to yourself to try these darkly attractive smokes that come in a dress box, and see what the private reserves of the famed Chateau have to offer.