Fonseca Vintage
Size: 5 x 50
Tobacco: Dominican
Price: $6.75

The Fonseca Vintage shares some traits with all the other Fonseca extensions I've tried: bland, boring, remarkably unremarkable.

The Vintage gets its name from the fact that all the tobaccos have been aged in tercio bales for 5 years. My two cigars aged in my humidor for an additional 19 months. It did absolutely nothing to improve them.

Vegas de Fonseca
Size: 5.4" x 50 (Sobrino)
Wrapper: African Cameroon
Filler: Nicaragua and Dominican
Price: $3.65 (online), $5.25 (B&M)

Vegas de Fonseca is unique for being aged in palm bark known as tercios. Translated "The Fields of Fonseca", it was introduced in 2004, promptly receiving a '92' rating from Cigar Insider and the #14 spot in Cigar Aficionado's Top 25 Cigars for 2004!

Since then, they seem to have largely fallen off the radar. I guess it's an indication of how fickle the cigar community can be that I'd never even heard of this extension of the Fonseca brand until I discovered a bunch of them hidden at the bottom of my humidor. I know I picked up two as part of a "Fonseca Delectable Dozen" sampler from Cigars International a year ago, but I have no idea how the others got in there. Possibly through some impulse CBid sampler.

I didn't have high expectations for Vegas de Fonseca, given my previous disappointments with the regular Fonseca and the MATASA 30th Anniversary cigar. The cigar features a dark, dry, veiny cameroon wrapper with only a faint prelight aroma. Nothing to promise much excitement.

Of the three I've smoked so far, one was noticeably much drier than the others. This is odd, since they've all been stored under the same conditions, in the same humidor, for the same length of time (11-12 months). The two wetter cigars were medium-bodied. They started with a core of woody, earthy flavors and then progressed into a grassy, almost floral phase. While the taste was fairly typical for this type cigar, the finish was really quite good, with a pepper spice that hits the back of the tongue and resonates in the mouth for a while.

The drier cigar had the same tendencies, but the earthy flavors were more pronounced, pushing into a medium-to-full body; the floral phase was not present; and the spicy finish was stronger and lasted longer. Moral of the story: Much more interesting when aged at a lower RH.

I'd say this cigar is something of a cross between a Hoyo de Monterrey and a Punch Gran Puro -- although not quite as good as either. It lacks the smooth character of the HdM or the out-and-out raw flavor of the Punch. Even at $2.75, which is what I paid with the Delectable Dozen promotion, this is a cigar I would willingly smoke again, but won't go out of my way to purchase.

Fonseca 5-50
Size: 5 x 50
Tobacco: Dominican with Connecticut wrapper and Mexican binder
Price: $5.25 (retail), $3.00 (online)

Fonseca is a widely available, established brand crafted by Manuel Quesada and comprised of tobaccos grown in the Cibao Valley of the Dominican Republic. I've been aging a couple in the humidor for several months. Even though it was a tad chilly this afternoon, I decided to light one up after returning from the Youth Villages Annual Soup Sunday fund raiser.

The cigar featured a very light brown wrapper, with no veins or imperfections except for a small tear just below the neck of the band. It burned like a champ, with no need for touch-ups and infrequent ashing. Unfortunately, there wasn't much going on in the taste department. Very mild, with hints of nuts and earth flavors, but supremely uninteresting. Probably not a cigar I will ever consider purchasing again.

MATASA 30TH ANNIVERSARY

SIZE: 6.5 X 52 (Toro)

WRAPPER: Dominican (maduro)

TOBACCO: Dominican & Nicaraguan

Price: $8 to $11

This cigar was one of the bigger disappointments I've had in a while. It tasted like leather, a little spongy (despite being stored in low RH) with a tight draw. It was strong, but not spicy and not very flavorful. Its appearance wasaverage, with a somewhat splotchy-looking wrapper.

Here's the PR spin on this cigar (which just goes to tell you not to believe everything you read):

MATASA stands for Manufactura de Tabacos, S.A., which is a factory begun in 1974 by Manuel Quesada in Santiago, DR. The Quesada family worked in Cuba for several generations, not as cigar-makers, but as tobacco leaf brokers. They settled in the DR after being forced out of Cuba at gunpoint by the Communists. The MATASA factory is today best-known for producing the many varieties of Fonseca cigars (they also make the bulk of JR alternatives).

The MATASA 30th Anniversary cigar by Fonseca was created to celebrate the founding of the company. Introduced in 2005, about 30,000 cigars were produced and promptly received the Robb Report honor "Best of the Best 2006". The wrappers are choice maduro leaf ("high priming Olor Dominicano" from the Cibao Valley), and the filler tobacco is aged over 10 years. Quesada described it as "the finest of old, noble leaf so that we would have the depth of some of the choicest aged Cuban-seed tobaccos, but without the hardened strength."

Padilla Hybrid Robusto

Size: 5 x 50

Wrapper: Ecuador (hybrid of a cuban-seed and a Connecticut seed)

Filler: Nicaragua, DR, Peru

Price: $3.50

At first, I wasn't sure I'd like this cigar. It had a light-brown wrapper with a faint,tart pre-light flavor. I couldn't tell if the tartness was just a property of this unique wrapper, or an indication of a young cigar with too much ammonia.But it burned very well for the better part of an hour, and held a terrific ash. Mild to medium, but gains in complexity as it burns. Paired with a lager, but I think it would go better with a single malt. I think with some aging this could be an excellent everyday cigar that would also hold up well on special occasions.