Trinidad Vigia - RAG ENE 18 (SSSTRW)

[PointFivePast]

Beautiful early spring weather reaching in to the mid 60’s here meaning it’s the perfect time to get some fresh air and leave the quarantine bubble. Wild couple of weeks here in the US and daily life is changing pretty quickly here on the west coast. The silver lining is plenty of time to call family and catch up, play some video games, and of course - smoke all the cigars! Picked a Trinidad Vigia with just over two years of age on it. This was my first box of Trinis ever and picked them up only because they were on an amazing sale. Just over four inches and a 54 RG is definitely not my size of choice but they were a reasonable cost of entry to the brand so what the heck. P.S. - if anyone knows how to rotate photos when uploading them, shoot me a PM ? 

 

Wrappers are definitely darker than most, with some lumps and veins. For Trinidad sort of being the successor to Cohiba, I’m a bit shocked at the wrapper quality. It’s not terrible but nothing like what I see on the handful of Cohibas I have. Aroma at cold is sweet manure and earth with a slightly musty quality. Cold draw is similar but with some cocoa and dark roasted coffee. I took care to make a quality cut and despite the cut end looking like absolute perfection, the draw is WIDE open. Let’s see how this goes...

1/3: Rich and robust with notes of bitter espresso, sweet woods, and burnt sugarcane. About a half inch in and the cigar is firing on all cylinders; bitterness drops off revealing sweet cedar and lightly roasted coffee. Vanilla pudding drifts in and out. The burn, however, is atrocious and requires frequent relights. Not sure if you can make it out in the picture but the wrapper/binder absolutely refuse to burn at the same rate as the filler.

 

2/3: Getting some rye toast now with a bit of orange zest. Sweetness drifts in and out and when it’s their its present with that vanilla which has now morphed in to straight vanilla bean as though cut right out of the pod. All of this eras around a rich core flavor of medium roast drop coffee. Pleasant and a surprising amount of changes for such a short and fat cigar. Burn is still awful, requiring constant maintenance. 
 

3/3: As this cigar enters the home stretch, milk chocolate comes in to play. A quick purge lightens the smoke but does not affect the flavors. Smoke production has been fantastic this whole way despite the wind tunnel draw and god-awful burn. Chocolate playing a big part now having near completely replaced the coffee as the core flavor though the finish remains reminiscent of a cup of drip coffee. Number it for no good reason other than I was enjoying the weather.

 

Conclusions: Hate the format, hate the draw, surprisingly pleased with the flavor profile. I suspect that in order to truly get to know Trinidad, I will need to pick up some Fundadores so I will be in my wheelhouse on RG. The Vigia just feels so chunky and I can’t help but think that the wind tunnel effect is simply an unfortunate side effect of the RG. I know you can roll a larger cigar right but I somehow suspect Cuba is just better at skinnies. Oh well, it was enjoyable enough. Flavor profile was interesting and a far cry from my usual diet of PLPC and HUHC. In any case, if you love larger cigars this might be the ticket but I would probably pass in the future, especially given the price. A better burn may have moved this cigar up five points or so but it still wouldn’t rank among the greats for me. 83/100.

Thanks for reading and stay safe friends!