Ashton ESG ( Estate Grown )
No.20*..................6.75 x 49.................Price / Packing Unknown
*First of five sizes to be released, one per year, over the next five years
Production: 50,000
ASHTON WITH WRAPPER FROM CHATEAU DE LA FUENTE :BY DAVID SAVONA
Ashton Cigars will soon sell a cigar with a truly rare type of wrapper tobacco. The Ashton Estate Sun Grown will be wrapped in a dark leaf of Cuban-seed tobacco grown in the direct sunlight at Chateau de la Fuente, the
Dominican Republic farm where Fuente Fuente OpusX wrappers are grown.
The OpusX brand is wrapped in tobacco grown under shade at Chateau de la Fuente, but the sun-grown leaf covering the new Ashtons has never before been used on a commercial cigar brand. Fuente has used it to wrap maduro
versions of its Fuente Fuente OpusX, which have never been commercially sold.
The new Ashton will go on sale in November or December, and will measure 6 3/4 inches by 49 ring. It has yet to be named, but could go by the name 20 to honor the brand’s 20th anniversary, which is this year.
No price has been set either.
It’s the first shape in what will eventually become a brand with five shapes. The last size will be released during Ashton’s 25th anniversary in 2010.
Ashton will sell approximately 50,000 cigars this year.
Next year, the company will unveil a second size and re-release the first, with about 50,000 of each size. Like all Ashton cigars, these are being made at Tabacalera A. Fuente y Cia., in Santiago, Dominican Republic.
“Every year for the next five years we’re going to come out with one size,” said Ashton brand owner Robert Levin. He demurred when asked about the strength and style of the brand, as the final cigars are still young. “They still have to age them,” he said.
The cigars, however, should pack considerable strength, given the wrapper leaf. I’ve smoked several sizes of the unreleased Fuente Fuente OpusX maduro, and they have always been much more powerful than the regular OpusX, which is
among the more powerful cigars in the world today. Tobacco leaves grown at Chateau de la Fuente pack a significant punch, and the extra sunlight that hits the sun-grown leaves adds even more power. It’s doubtful that the Ashton Estate Sun Growns will be anything but full-bodied smokes.
Levin did say that the cigars would taste considerably different from his Ashton Virgin Sun Grown brand, a strong cigar that is wrapped with tobacco grown without shade in Ecuador. The new cigars are also different from the Ashton Estate Reserve, a limited-edition cigar that was made with shadegrown tobacco from Chateau de la Fuente and packaged inside a Prometheus humidor.
Information on the 2001 Ashton VSG ER cigar and Humidors: Ashton VSG ER Link
