Arturo Fuente cigars

Four generations of Fuentes

The founder, Arturo Fuente, came from Güines, Cuba, and was 24 when he opened A. Fuente & Co.

By 1924 the company had 500 workers. Then a fire took the building late that year, and production stopped for 22 years. In 1946 Arturo restarted small, rolling at his home in Ybor City with his wife beside him.

In 1958 his younger son, Carlos Fuente Sr., bought the business for $1. It was making only a few thousand cigars a year. Carlos Sr. and his son Carlos "Carlito" Fuente Jr. built it from there. Carlos Sr. died in Tampa on August 5, 2016, at 81. The company is still family-owned.

From Tampa to Nicaragua to Santiago

Arturo Fuente cigars are rolled at Tabacalera A. Fuente in Santiago de los Caballeros, Dominican Republic, which opened in September 1980.

Getting there took three moves. Rising labor costs pushed rolling out of Florida in the 1960s. Factories in Mexico and Puerto Rico were tried and dropped. In the 1970s production went to Estelí, Nicaragua. That factory burned to the ground in 1979, during the Nicaraguan Revolution.

The Dominican factory started at 12,000 square feet. By 2010 Wikipedia puts output at more than 30 million cigars a year. The factory also rolls for others: Ashton is made there, and Fuente makes some cigars for J.C. Newman, which in turn makes Fuente's machine-made cigars.

Chateau de la Fuente grows the wrapper

Chateau de la Fuente is the family's tobacco farm in El Caribe, near Bonao, in the Dominican Republic, and it grows the wrapper for OpusX.

The idea was a dare. In the 1980s, most Dominican cigars used imported wrapper, and the trade believed good wrapper couldn't be grown there. Carlito planted 37 acres of Corojo seed under shade in 1991 on land first shown to him by grower Angel Oliva Sr. Cigar Aficionado reports the farm is over 300 acres, with about 130 to 150 acres in use.

The family began growing its own tobacco, including wrapper, on a large scale in the late 1980s. Leaf from the Chateau that isn't used is destroyed, not sold. For more on Dominican growing country, see cigar tobacco regions.

Arturo Fuente lines and their wrappers

Fuente does not publish blend sheets on its website, so the wrappers below come from Wikipedia and trade press.

Other Fuente names on Wikipedia's product list include Añejo, 8-5-8, Curly Head and Casa Cuba. Sizes are length in inches by ring gauge.

Arturo Fuente milestones

Fuente's timeline spans more than a century, two fires and three countries.

• 1912: founded in West Tampa.
• 1924: fire destroys the factory; production halts until 1946.
• 1958: Carlos Fuente Sr. buys the company for $1.
• 1976: Don Carlos first blended, in Nicaragua, on a Corojo-seed wrapper.
• 1979: the Estelí factory burns.
• 1980: Santiago factory opens.
• 1986: Don Carlos returns with a Cameroon wrapper.
• 1991: first Corojo wrapper planted at what became Chateau de la Fuente.
• November 18, 1995: OpusX debuts in New York City.
• 2016: Carlos Fuente Sr. dies.

What to know before you buy an Arturo Fuente

Fuente makes both everyday lines and short-run releases, and OpusX is the one that ships only a few times a year in limited numbers.

Shape is the easy tell. Hemingway was built around special shapes, which Wikipedia credits as the first hit of Fuente's Dominican years. OpusX runs from a short belicoso to a 9 1/4 inch giant. Our size chart shows each shape.

Wrapper is the other. Don Carlos and Hemingway sit under Cameroon leaf. OpusX wears Dominican leaf, and Fuente picked its oxblood box to echo the wrapper's reddish hue. Compare the shades on the wrapper color chart.

Arturo Fuente questions

Where the Arturo Fuente facts come from

1. Arturo Fuente, Wikipedia
2. 20 Years of OpusX, Cigar Aficionado
3. Arturo Fuente Don Carlos 90 Años, halfwheel