Arturo Fuente
Arturo Fuente, the legend of a brand that will never succumb to its injuries.
The history of the famous brand starts in 1902, when the young Arturo Fuente, a 14 year old Cuban, flees his native country because of the Spanish-American war. He and his family moved to the United States to Ybor City, a neighbourhood in Tampa, Florida, known as the capital of cigar of the country. Among the many tobacco businesses in the city, producing hundreds of millions of cigars per year, Arturo Fuente founded his first factory in 1912: the Arturo Fuente & Company.
This first factory which produces entirely hand-rolled cigars with imported Cuban tobacco, will know a promising beginning with not less than 500 employees. A few years later, when Arturo Fuente & Company was at its peak, a terrible accident occurred while Arturo was on a trip to Cuba to buy tobacco. His Tampa factory was destroyed by fire in 1924 and was declared in total loss.
This tragedy will unfortunately be the first of many. In fact, during its existence, the Arturo Fuente brand will experience no less than 8 fires, 2 hurricanes, several political upheavals, as well as a trial. Nevertheless, this tragic climate will never overcome the Fuente dynasty.
Determined to see his dreams come true, Arturo worked for 22 years as a general manager in a local Tampa company to pay off the debts caused by the fire. With the help of his wife, Cristina Trujillo, and his sons Arturo Oscar Fuente and Carlos Arturo Fuente, he was able to create the new Arturo Fuente Cigar Factory in the backyard of his house. All the family members, as well as their friends, helped them to run the business. The children also supported their father by rolling 50 cigars each, every day after returning from school.
Sharing the passion of the cigar with his father, Carlos Arturo Fuente will work hard to contribute to the development of the manufacture, with his wife Anna by his side. His brother Arturo Oscar Fuente decided to work in another industry, the peanut industry. In order to make ends meet, Anna took a job in another factory to learn how to roll cigars, while spending the rest of her time helping Carlos and taking care of the family. Meanwhile, Carlos, who never had experiences in sales before, took many risks by opening new offices in Florida. He also began to sell cigars on credit, which was an innovation at the time. These risks paid off and over the next ten years Carlos established distribution networks in Miami and Manhattan. This represents a crucial step in Arturo Fuente’s notoriety and the distribution of its cigars.
A few years later, Arturo decided to retire from his activities and asked his son, Carlos Arturo Fuente, to run the factory in 1956.
After being appointed as head of the industry, Carlos Arturo Fuente decided to visit his family in Cuba, shortly after de Cuban revolution, in the late fall of 1962. There, he heard several rumors about a potential commercial embargo that the United States were going to impose to the island. He immediately decided to buy as many Cuban tobacco as possible, a decision that became Carlos’s first master stroke. In fact, he acquired the equivalent of a 3 years stock of Cuban tobacco, which is a visionary investment in view of the American embargo that was about to be imposed. While many cigar manufacturers were forced to close their doors, the Arturo Fuente Factory managed to maintain itself. After the exhaustion of the stock, he started to manufacture non-Cuban cigars, requiring him to source tobacco from new regions such as Puerto Rico, Mexico, Honduras and Nicaragua. However, his blending skills helped him to recreate the Cuban tobacco’s taste that smokers like so much.
His father, the great Arturo Fuente, died on February 11, 1973, at the age of 85. It will inspire, in his memory, the creation of the Flor Fina 8-5-8 cigar based on his own special blend. From now on, Carlos will develop the family business with his son, Carlito Fuente.
Determined to improve the quality of his production, Carlos opened a new factory in Nicaragua that produced up to 18,000 cigars per day for 3 years! However, his hopes were reduced to ashes when the Sandinista forces took over Nicaragua in 1978, burning everything on their way, including the family’s factory located in Estelí. After this tragedy, Carlos opened a new factory in Honduras, but the adventure was short-lived as it was also destroyed by fire. If the family managed to survive thanks to the income from Ybor City, they had to act quickly to face the bankruptcy threat that was dangerously approaching.
Endowed with an endless strength of resilience, the Fuente once again armed themselves with courage to rebuild their empire and give space to their exploits.
To do so, the family mortgaged its home and moved to a new and challenging land, the Dominican Republic. In Santiago, Carlos' new factory, Tabacalera A. Fuente & Cie, conquered the heart of many cigar lovers. Indeed, the Hemingways serie, entirely made with Dominican tobacco, was acclaimed by the aficionados but also by the magazine Cigar Connoisseur which dedicated an article to it. After several difficult years, the company finally enjoyed an international reputation that gave Carlito the impetus to start an extraordinary project.
Raised in the traditions of tobacco, Carlito contributed to the growth of the brand by creating the emblematic Fuente Fuente OpusX line, which also have an exciting history. During a visit at Chateau de la Fuente in 1988, the family farm located in El Caribe, the owner of the "Boutique 22", an emblematic Parisian cigar store, complimented the quality of Arturo Fuente's cigar production. Unfortunately, he then added that it will never be up to the standards of the greatest of the industry because they are only assembling cigars. This statement, that left Carlito deeply hurt, pushed him to revolutionize his production methods.
At the time, no one managed to grow good quality wrapper on the Dominican territory and many voices tried to dissuade Carlito from achieving his objectives. Nonetheless, this ambitious project named “Project X from Planet 9” allowed the development of what became the first high quality Dominican wrapper. Launched in 1995, the Fuente Fuente OpusX became the favorite cigar of the brand’s enthusiasts and the Fuente Fuente OpusX Double Corona was awarded with the title of "Cigar of the Year" by the magazine Cigar Aficionado in 2005.
This prized cigar is a reflection of its creator: powerful. Adorned with a magnificent ring elaborated with several gold textures, the Fuente Fuente OpusX inaugurated an evolution towards more intense smokes and stronger cigars. As soon as it was launched, sales had to be limited to only two vitolas per customer due to high demand. That makes it a relatively rare cigar.
Victims of their success, these cigars were the target of a lawsuit by the Opus One winery (led by Robert Mondavi Corp. and Baron Philippe de Rothschild S.A.) because of the resemblance between their names. This battle lasted 2 years and costed millions of dollars to each party, before being won by the Fuente family in 1998.
The family tradition has been carried on for over a century now. While the Arturo Fuente brand was also hit by Hurricane Irene on the eve of its 100th anniversary in 2011, it proudly celebrates its many triumphs, keeping in mind that the road to success is long and full of pitfalls. Despite these many challenges, its history is a true demonstration of hard work, dedication and success. Today, the work initially undertaken by Arturo Fuente has become a worldwide reference in the cigar industry.
To this day, the Chateau de la Fuente is one of the most beautiful tobacco farms in the world. After having gone through this as violent and devastating disaster as the previous ones, this extraordinary journey has encouraged the Fuente family to help the most needy: In 2001, they joined forces with the Newsman family to found the Cigar Family Charitable Foundation, now recognized by the United Nations. This association has allowed the installation of several drinking water stations as well as the construction of elementary and secondary schools.
To learn more about Arturo Fuente cigars and the history of the brand, we would be delighted to welcome you in our walk-in humidor, where you will discover our selection of cigars from the brand, including special productions, but also regular production cigars.
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