In January of 2013, Villiger Cigars announced they would be hosting various Discovery Tour events in order to introduce their cigars to smokers around the country. Along with the normal specials, the events would also feature a sampler of unreleased cigars that would be included with box purchases.

We broke the news with the information of the Unreleased Samplers in a news post back in January:

Villiger Cigars North America, a branch of the Swiss tobacco company, will host the first event of its Discovery Tour tomorrow at Gordon’s Cigars in Colorado Springs, Colo. The Discovery Tour is an 80 event promotion planned for the first quarter of this year featuring a new sampler of unreleased cigars, hence the Unreleased Sampler name.

The Discovery Tour is meant to “introduce the Colorado and Talanga lines as well as give a sneak peak of what is yet to come from Villiger Cigars North America for 2013,” according to Roy MacLaren, President of Villiger Cigars North America.
Included in the five cigar Unreleased Sampler are one of each of the following:
Villiger Unreleased Sampler
(From left to right):

  • Talanga Corona Selecto (5 x 46)
  • Colorado Toro Especiale (5 3/4 x 52)
  • Colorado Diadema (6 1/2 x 54)
  • Talanga Lancero (7 x 40)
  • Colorado Closed Foot Torpedo (5 1/2 x 52)

Consumers who purchase a box of either Colorado or Talanga, the two new blends the company introduced at IPCPR this past year, will receive a sampler free. Only 2,500 samplers have been produced. According to MacLaren, each participating Discovery Tour retailer will have an opportunity to purchase a “limited quantity” of Unreleased Samplers.
An updated list of events is available at Villiger’s website.

Here is what the Villiger Unreleased Samplers look like.

Villiger Unreleased Sampler 1

Villiger Unreleased Sampler 2

Villiger Selecto Lancero 1

  • Cigar Reviewed: Villiger Talanga Selecto Lancero
  • Country of Origin: Nicaragua
  • Factory: Plasencia Cigars S.A.
  • Wrapper: Connecticut Talanga Shade Grown
  • Binder: Nicaragua (Jalapa)
  • Filler: Nicaragua (Estelí, Condega & Ometempe)
  • Size: 7 Inches
  • Ring Gauge: 40
  • Vitola: Lancero
  • MSRP: n/a
  • Release Date: Jan. 11, 2013
  • Date Released: 2,500 Samplers of 1 Cigar (2,500 Total Cigars)
  • Number of Cigars Smoked for Review: 3

The Villiger Selecto Lancero is a wonderful specimen with a light cinnamon wrapper that is fairly toothy to the touch. Some slight veins are visible, but they are not distracting at all and there is the perfect amount of resistance when squeezed. The aroma coming off of the wrapper is a combination of of barnyard, raisins, coffee and light spice.

The Villiger Selecto Lancero starts out immediately with strong flavors of bitter espresso, dark chocolate, nuts and sweet cedar. There is a great white pepper on the retrohale that combines with a wonderful cinnamon note—both of which are quite strong in the first 10 puffs—but calm down quickly to a manageable level. Construction-wise, both the burn and draw are spot on so far while smoke production is about average. The overall strength of the Villiger starts out fairly light—and while it increases noticeably—it still ends the first third no stronger than a strong mild.

Villiger Selecto Lancero 2

Coming into the second third of the Selecto Lancero, the white pepper and cinnamon combination has decreased quite a bit, although it is still noticeable enough to impact the profile in a good way. The flavors remain somewhat consistent with the first third: a nice nutty note taking the dominant spot along with dark chocolate, coffee and wood. Both the burn and the draw continue to excel, while the strength has increase slightly to a very mild medium.

Villiger Selecto Lancero 3

The final third of the Villiger Selecto Lancero pretty much continues down the path the first two thirds set. There seems to be a bit more pepper on the retrohale near the end of the smoke and the dominant flavor changes from a nutty note to more of a noticeably sweet cedar flavor with other notes of espresso, chocolate, earth and nuts ebbing in and out. The construction remains outstanding until the end of the smoke. Near closing, the strength just barely hits the medium mark.

Villiger Selecto Lancero 4

Final Notes:

  • I am really impressed with the fact that all five cigars in the Unreleased sampler are so different in terms of vitola and ring gauge. From a Corona to a Diadema, there is a cigar for every preference included except the 60 RG crowd.
  • Do not smoke this cigar too fast. It gets bitter fast if you are not careful.
  • I love the overt pretentiousness of the old school logo on the bands.
  • This cigars pairs perfectly with a strong espresso.
  • The wrapper on all of my Lancero samples seemed to be a bit delicate, but as long as you are careful when transporting/smoking them, it should not be a major issue.
  • Villiger is well-known outside of the U.S. for their machine made cigars and pipe tobacco.
  • Villiger cigars will be selling both the Talanga and Colorado blends outside of the U.S. for the first time on June 15, when they launch in Europe.
  • Incidentally, Germany is the country with the most sales of Villiger products in the world.
  • Villiger will be releasing a 125th Anniversary blend at the IPCPR 2013 in Las Vegas in July.
  • Both the burn and draw were phenomenal on all three samples I smoked, absolutely no problems in that regards at all.
  • The samples smoked for this review were supplied by Villiger Cigars.
  • The final smoking time for all three of samples I smoked for review averaged about one hour and 35 minutes.
  • The only way ou can find an updated list of the Discovery events where the Unreleased Samplers at Villiger’s website.
86 Overall Score

I have always been a fan of the Talanga wrapper that Villiger uses, as it seems to impart some great sweet and peppery notes to the profile and these attributes are quite evident in the Lancero vitola of the Talanga Lancero. Although not overly complex at any point, the flavors are extremely distinct and rich, and the construction of each of the samples I smoked was spot on. Having said all of that, this is a fairly light cigar strength-wise, so don't go into it thinking it is going to blow your socks off in that regard. A perfect cigar early in the morning with a cup of coffee.

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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.