Let me start out this review by noting a few things: I am a rather novice cigar smoker, but I know what I like, though my likes are sometimes off the beaten track. And I like the Fonseca Robusto Maduro.

Perhaps it is because I am a biologist, I am the sort of person who likes, from wine and beer to pickles, fermented products: the more fermentation the better. So when I became interested in cigar smoking, I was most interested in the highly processed, presumably well fermented maduro wrapper. Also, since I am somewhat sensitive to things, I wanted to smoke a smaller cigar so as not to tax my system too much.

So, I smoked a few robusto maduros from good, relatively strongly flavored brands such as Punch and Romeo y Julieta. What I found is that they all were quite nice, but had a strong wintergreen flavor, which somehow was not what I expected in a cigar. What I figured out, after smoking a larger cigar and finding the wintergreen flavor built up at the end, was that the wintergreen flavor was in part due to the smoking end of the cigar being relatively close to the end in my mouth.

Anyway, I smoked a maduro version of the Fonseca (5-50?) as part of a combo pack I purchased from Nat Sherman and was quite impressed. It was a little larger than a regular robusto (moreover, as I understand things, Fonsecas tend to be a bit more mild of a cigar, apparently), so before it switched to a very pleasant wintergreen, it had nice fermented flavors like a fine wine: red fruit, spice, and especially coffee (a la the "cigar" flavored NY City Roast of Chock Full O' Nuts -- a truly heavenly coffee, especially for making Irish coffee).

I would say that this cigar is probably the best I have smoked so far, but I have another combo pack with some more cigars, so maybe I will smoke some even better ones?

Recommended: Yes

Cigar Name: Cigars Fonseca 5-50 (robusto)
Cigar Rating: Better than most