I’m guessing there have been more than a dozen Freedom Samplers released by Cigar Rights of America (CRA), an industry trade group. Typically, these samplers contain 10 cigars from 10 different companies. During the last five or so years, the samplers have almost always contained cigars from the same 10 companies, all of which serve as CRA’s main benefactors. Those companies are:

  • Alec Bradley
  • Arturo Fuente
  • Ashton
  • J.C. Newman
  • La Flor Dominicana
  • My Father Cigars, Inc.
  • Oliva
  • Padrón
  • Rocky Patel Premium Cigars, Inc.
  • Tatuaje

Typically, these samplers are split roughly half and half between cigars that you could purchase outside of the sampler and cigars that would be either very difficult or impossible to otherwise purchase. While Arturo Fuente has consistently provided harder to find cigars—usually an OpusX though there’s also been Casa Fuente and Rare Pink cigars used—they’ve been cigars you could purchase outside of the sampler.

As part of the CRA Freedom Sampler Spring 2023 that began shipping in February, Arturo Fuente created a new cigar that, to my knowledge, is not available any other way. It’s called the Fuente Fuente OpusX The Undefeated. The company never provided any information about the cigar itself, but it would appear to be a 6 x 56 toro extra version of the regular OpusX blend, which is made entirely of tobaccos from the company’s Chateau de la Fuente farm in Caribe, Dominican Republic.

The history of OpusX has been as documented as much as any non-Cuban cigar. It all began when the owner of Boutique 22, a store in Paris, told Carlos “Carlito” Fuente Jr. that he was not a cigar maker because Arturo Fuente didn’t make a product made entirely of tobaccos the company grew itself. That comment stuck with the younger Fuente, who began to wonder how he could go from a “cigar assembler” as the retailer called him to a “cigar maker.” The answer was to grow his own wrapper, which wasn’t as easy as it would seem. At that time, many believed that it wasn’t possible to grow good cigar wrapper in the Dominican Republic.

Angel Oliva Sr. of the Oliva Tobacco Co. took Fuente to a farm the Olivas owned in a small town outside of Bonao called Caribe. In 1991, Fuente planted a crop of tobacco under cheese cloths on the land that the Olivas still owned. In 1992 that first crop was harvested as part of Project X from Planet 9, the internal code name for what became OpusX.

Today, that land is owned by Arturo Fuente and called Tabacalera A. Fuente y Cia., seemingly the most famous tobacco farm in the cigar industry. Fuente Fuente OpusX debuted in 1995, the first successful Dominican puro that would lead the way for cigars like the Davidoff Puro d’Oro, La Aurora 100 Años and La Flor Dominicana’s Litto Gomez Diez series, all Dominican puros that came after OpusX. Today, there is now a family of OpusX brands, the original OpusX blend has been offered in shapes ranging from a lancero to a football, and there’s so many different OpusX-themed accessories that, at times, there have been three different accessory companies with licensing agreements to produce OpusX cutters.

If OpusX was its own company, that company would be a sizeable player in the cigar industry.

The Undefeated is one of three cigars that appear to be exclusives for this sampler. To my knowledge, neither the Alec Bradley Double Broadleaf Limited Edition Figurado nor My Father S Special Toro have been sold before.

There are three other cigars that are not exclusives but are not regular production cigars. The Padrón Black No. 52 has been released in previous CRA samplers but is not known to have been sold otherwise. The Tatuaje Limited Robusto Especial is actually the Lomo de Cerdo, which was released last month, meaning the CRA Sampler served as a soft launch for the cigar. The Oliva Serie V Melanio Diadema has been included in previous CRA packs and, in 2019, was offered to non-U.S. retailers as a limited edition. It is not sold as a regular production item.

There were 4,000 CRA Spring 2023 Freedom Samplers created. Unlike some of the previous samplers, this pack does not come with a CRA membership. Each sampler has an MSRP of $150.

  • Cigar Reviewed: Fuente Fuente OpusX The Undefeated
  • Country of Origin: Dominican Republic
  • Factory: Tabacalera A. Fuente y Cia
  • Wrapper: Dominican Republic
  • Binder: Dominican Republic
  • Filler: Dominican Republic
  • Length: 6 Inches
  • Ring Gauge: 56
  • Vitola: Toro Extra
  • MSRP: $15 (Sampler of 10, $150)
  • Release Date: February 2023
  • Number of Cigars Released: 4,000 Samplers of 1 Cigar (4,000 Total Cigars)*
  • Number of Cigars Smoked For Review: 3

*This number is based on the number of samplers.

Much like with the My Father S Special, The Undefeated cigars I have for this review look like they got box-pressed, but I’m not convinced they were supposed to be. Of the three cigars I smoke, one appears intentionally box-pressed, one is round and the third is somewhere in between. If you’ve smoked an OpusX before, the appearance will be rather familiar: the ornate band covers a caramel-colored wrapper with an obvious vein structure though fairly consistent colors. The aromas from the wrappers smell quite different. One smells nutty, another reminds me of a Japanese demi-glace you’d find on omurice, a Japanese dish, and the third smells like the aroma of pond water. The feet are much more similar with nuttiness, vanilla, floral sensations, demi-glace and, on one cigar, some sharpness. I find the foot to be too bright for its own good and it’s tough for me to pick up all of what’s present in the medium-full aroma. Cold draws are also medium-full with soggy oatmeal over near, brown sugar and a truffle flavor that reminds me of the olor tobacco(s) used by Davidoff.

Of all the blends that I could probably detect in a blind taste test, OpusX is the one I’d feel most confident about. The start of The Undefeated is a reminder of the profile: lots of woodiness—cedar, oak and pine—with saltiness and some underlying sweetness. While OpusX is known as a strong cigar, the first puff is medium-plus to medium-full. Eventually, the woodiness becomes a defined sweet cedar flavor that sits atop funkiness, dry nuttiness, generic white bread, melon sweetness and some Montreal steak seasoning. I find that some OpusX cigars have a slight dryness and it’s present during the first third. The finish has meatiness, dry nuttiness, sandwich bread, herbal flavors and more of that sweet cedar—the flavors are more balanced than when the smoke is in the mouth, though I’m not sure if that’s for the better. Retrohales are fragrant with a soft nuttiness, generic sweetness, sandwich bread and saltiness. As much as I try, I cannot find any noticeable difference between the retrohale and its finish. Flavor is medium-full, body is medium-full and strength is medium-full. One cigar has a tight draw, but construction is otherwise excellent.

Fortunately, the dryness that I found at times during the first third of the OpusX The Undefeated is completely gone in the second third. It creates a more refreshing profile, though one that is still led by a cedar flavor that is paired with some generic sweetness. Underneath is saltiness, a muted black pepper and some unsweet creaminess. The finish sees the cedar become a generic woodiness and more of the creaminess, though the most noticeable change is there’s a mild amount of harshness, something that stands out given the general lack of pepper I’ve tasted up until this point. Retrohales have a generic dough flavor over some floral flavors, cedar, white pepper, lemon and apple. It’s incredibly complex and difficult for me to pick out all the flavors before the retrohale’s finish begins. That last section is much easier to detect: cedar, white pepper and leather. Flavor is medium-full, body is medium and strength is medium-full. Outside of a crack that develops on one cigar, construction is a carbon copy of the first third: quite good.

Cedar continues to be the main flavor, but the sweetness attached to it is reduced to the point where I’d call it semi-sweet. The final third adds some underlying toastiness—which changes things a lot—along with hay and some leather. The finish has cedar and nuttiness leading, though an added amount of saltiness really changes things compared to before. Secondary notes include hay, some more of that steak seasoning, charred earthiness and a touch of harshness. Everything is very well integrated and even the harshness seems like a positive. Retrohales are a bit of a different story, given that a rich salty flavor overwhelms white pepper, creaminess and leather. Unfortunately, the saltiness is still present during the finish, though cedar and the steak seasoning help to cut through it a bit. Flavor finishes medium-full, body is full and strength is medium-plus. Smoke production declines at times, but a few quicker puffs can help to put it back on track, though I did need to use my lighter to touch up one cigar.

Final Notes

  • It might be more than 25 years old, but in my opinion, the regular OpusX remains one of the best bands you’ll see on a cigar today. The level of detail work, from the colors to the embossing, is crazy. For example, embossed parts of the X actually sit on top of the embossed oval shape.
  • Arturo Fuente never answered my questions about the size of this cigar, we measured them as:
    • 6.03. x 55.5
    • 6 x 55.5
    • 5.99 x 56
  • There are 17 OpusX sizes listed on the Arturo Fuente price list, none of them are remotely close to this size. Only two of the parejo vitolas—the Double Robusto (5 3/4 x 52) and Magnum O (4 3/4 x 56)—are thicker than 50 ring gauge.
  • I can’t find any evidence that there’s been a regular OpusX blend made in the 6 x 56 size before, though I’d be willing to be a lot of money that it’s happened. There are OpusX cigars in pretty much every shape you can imagine, as well as dozens of vitolas I would never imagine. The idea that Fuente never tried making a 6 x 56 OpusX before this just seems implausible.
  • One of the coolest things I’ve ever seen at a cigar factory is a Haas water jet machine at Fuente’s box factory. It allows the company to make custom molds on-site, which means that if Fuente decided it wanted to try out a 7 1/2 x 64 OpusX Perfecto size, it could have the cigars rolled and in the aging room in less than 48 hours.
  • There was a time in which OpusX was considered to be one of the strongest cigars you could purchase. That is no longer the case today. I find regular OpusX to be between medium-full and full.
  • The following three bullet points were all mentioned in my recent review of the My Father S Special Toro, which is also sold in the most recent CRA pack.
  • The companies donate the cigars to the CRA for these packs, which are then sold to retailers. The proceeds from the sale of the cigars are donated back to the CRA. Boveda donates the bags and one of the cigar companies handles the sales and distribution. My understanding is that the vast majority of the money ends up going to the CRA. In the case of the CRA Freedom Sampler Spring 2023, that should mean a donation of more than $250,000.
  • These packs, along with substantial monetary donations from the same companies, have made a difference for the CRA. A decade ago, the group was known within the cigar regulatory community for having lackluster finances, but today things have been turned around.
  • More importantly, the CRA’s finances are having a direct effect on the cigars most of our readers smoke. The CRA solely funded the most recent part of the Cigar Association of America et al. v. United States Food and Drug Administration et al., a federal lawsuit filed by three cigar trade groups. That most recent part scored the largest win for the cigar industry, one that could lead to premium cigars being deregulated from FDA regulation. You can read more about where that lawsuit stands here.
  • Arturo Fuente advertises on halfwheel.
  • Cigars for this review were purchased by halfwheel.
  • Final smoking time was two hours and 30 minutes.
  • Site sponsor Atlantic Cigar Co. has the CRA Freedom Sampler Spring 2023 for sale. Site sponsor Cigars Direct has broken up its sampler and offers the OpusX The Undefeated for sale individually.
91 Overall Score

This is a very good expression of what I expect OpusX to be. It’s got the cedar flavor that is paired with sweetness from start to finish, it has very good construction, it has a restrained but still impactful amount of nicotine. The Undefeated is very much what I’d expect from OpusX, though I’m not sure if it’s exactly what I’d imagine a 6 x 56 vitola of OpusX to be. I don’t have a ton of experience smoking thicker parejo versions of the blend, but I do find the thicker belicosos tend to have a bit more oomph to them while the thinner sizes tend to be more acute in terms of both flavor and nicotine. I expected it to taste a bit more like a Super Belicoso and instead got a cigar that reminds me a bit more of the smaller sizes. If you like OpusX, you’ll like The Undefeated. If you don’t like OpusX, this absolutely won’t be the cigar to change your mind about the blend.

Avatar photo

Charlie Minato

I am an editor and co-founder of halfwheel.com/Rueda Media, LLC. I previously co-founded and published TheCigarFeed, one of the two predecessors of halfwheel. I have written about the cigar industry for more than a decade, covering everything from product launches to regulation to M&A. In addition, I handle a lot of the behind-the-scenes stuff here at halfwheel. I enjoy playing tennis, watching boxing, falling asleep to the Le Mans 24, wearing sweatshirts year-round and eating gyros. echte liebe.