In 2002 Fuente partnered with Prometheus to release the so called ForbiddenX Humidor, a limited run humidor with 100 cigars priced at $10,000 per unit. Fifty of the cigars included in the humidor were fairly rare smokes and vitolas.

Among the other cigars in that humidor were ten of the Fuente Fuente OpusX 952R, which is a 5 3/4 x 50 short pyramid that had supposedly been aging since 1997, which would make the cigar 13-years-old at the time of this review and one of the oldest OpusX there is, since the original release of the OpusX brand was in late 1995.

In addition to the ForbiddenX Humidor, 16 952Rs were included in each of the 200 OpusX Millennium humidors, making the total number produced of this vitola 4,200 cigars.

Now, when I purchased these five cigars, they were still in the packaging from the original humidor release, and I put them away for a while, thinking I would get to them at a later date. Well, I kind of forgot about them, and just happened to run across them recently, and decided it was time to do a review.

  • Cigar Reviewed: Fuente Fuente OpusX 952R
  • Country of Origin: Dominican Republic
  • Factory: Tabacalera A. Fuente y Cia
  • Wrapper: Dominican Chateau de la Fuente Sun Grown Rosado
  • Binder: Dominican Chateau de la Fuente
  • Filler: Dominican Chateau de la Fuente
  • Size: 5 3/4 Inches
  • Ring Gauge: 50
  • Vitola: Short Pyramid
  • Est. Price: $10.25 (Boxes of 18, $184.50)
  • Date Released: December 2009
  • Number of Cigars Released: 100 Humidors of 10 Cigars & 200 Humidors of 16 Cigars (4,200 Total Cigars)

The cigar itself is a great looking specimen and quite firm when squeezed. The band on the cigar was quite yellow, as it should be if it is this old, and the wrapper is a nice medium brown color and smells faintly of chocolate and cinnamon.

The dominant flavors in this cigar are a creamy cedar, coffee, a bit of spice, tobacco and a taste of an extremely earthy grit that was not pleasant, but interesting. The flavors just never seem to gel, almost like they were sitting on top of each other. At the end, the cigar got so mild and flavorless that I almost put it down, since it was obvious I was wasting my time, but I did finish it, waste of time and all.

In fact, I was so surprised about the outcome of this cigar, I gave one to a local friend to smoke, not telling him what it was before he smoked it. He agreed with my assessment and was astounded at what the cigar turned out to be, perhaps he will make a comment on this post with his thoughts.

Fuente Opus X 952R 1.png

Also, while the draw and burn were great for the whole stick, the wrapper split on me in the first third of the cigar and when I say split I mean it. It was very annoying, but did not affect the flavor of the cigar in any way that I could tell, so it is just an interesting note.

Fuente Opus X 952R 2.png

75 Overall Score

I was surprised that this was an extremely disappointing cigar, especially considering that I have smoked some original OpusX that have blown me away. This was a very mild and annoyingly boring specimen that never got any better, in fact, at the end of the cigar, it was so flavorless, it was almost like I was smoking air through a straw. Just chalk this up to yet another hard-to-find cigar that has much more purpose in its rarity then in its actual flavor.

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Brooks Whittington

I have been smoking cigars for over eight years. A documentary wedding photographer by trade, I spent seven years as a photojournalist for the Dallas Morning News and the Fort Worth Star Telegram. I started the cigar blog SmokingStogie in 2008 after realizing that there was a need for a cigar blog with better photographs and more in-depth information about each release. SmokingStogie quickly became one of the more influential cigar blogs on the internet, known for reviewing preproduction, prerelease, rare, extremely hard-to-find and expensive cigars. I am a co-founder of halfwheel and now serve as an editor for halfwheel.