Menendez y Garcia (a.k.a. Tabacalera de Garcia) launched the Dominican Montecristo brand in 1995. These cigars in the familiar bright-yellow box with the crossed-swords emblem became an instant success and inspired a number of additional brand extensions in ensuing years. Those from the production years 1994 through 1997 are made with all-Dominican tobaccos (with one exception of a superb USA-grown Connecticut shade wrapper).

The factory hung onto these cigars to check blend consistency from year to year, and insisted on keeping the samples from 1999 for comparison, but then... we were finally able get hold of a limited quantity!

The oddballs in the lot are the 1998 and 1999 Buena Fortuna, the factory’s first and second attempts at maduro-wrapped cigars.