The King Street Emporium

VSG

By Ashton

When Carlos Fuente Jr. introduced the Fuente Fuente OpusX in 1995 it demonstrated that Dominican tobacco could produce a full bodied cigar capable of competing with anything in the world. Robert Levin and Fuente Jr. built on that foundation with the Ashton VSG, released in 1999 as one of the first deliberately full bodied cigars built around Dominican tobacco. VSG stands for Virgin Sun Grown, a reference to the Ecuadorian Sumatra seed wrapper that defines the blend. The wrapper is grown at a private estate in Ecuador by the Oliva Tobacco Company, a leaf grower not to be confused with the Oliva cigar brand, and produced exclusively for the VSG. It is harvested from the upper primings of the plant, the leaves that receive the most direct sun and develop the most intensity. The Fuente family then ferments the leaf extensively before rolling, producing a dark, oily wrapper with a lustrous sheen. Beneath it are four to five year aged Dominican binder and filler tobaccos from the Fuente family's private reserves. Many of the VSG vitolas are box pressed. Rated 94 by Cigar Aficionado. Handmade at the Fuente factory in the Dominican Republic.