Wrapper: Habano Sun Grown
Binder: Nicaraguan
Filler: Jalapa Valley Ligero
This is one of my favorite vitolas, and this one is perfectly constructed, triple capped. Nice and firm. The wrapper feels toothy and smells of dark chocolate and coffee. 
It really smells fantastic. The wrapper almost looks like it was taken from the Padron reserves. It is really that rich and dark and flawless. Pre-light draw tastes of cocoa and nuts.
Easily lights up and right off the bat I get a subtle sweetness off the rich tobacco flavor. Good helping of cedar and wood shows up here in the first third. By the second third, the sweetness fades out and the cedar and wood seem to over take the smoke. I wouldn’t call this leathery, but I suspect some of you might pick up leather components to this. There is also a hint of spice on the back palate.
By the final third this cigar was starting to disappoint. The cedar and wood flavors developed a bitter edge and the smoke was getting very warm in the mouth. I put this cigar down just before it would have burned past the band. It’s almost as if the cigar started off with the best flavors and then slowly degraded every one of them. I was really digging the taste of this cigar in the first third. Too bad it just couldn’t keep it up.
If you like cedar/wood flavors and for some reason like a little bitter edge too it, this is the cigar for you. It is not, however, the cigar for me.
Wrapper: Connecticut
Binder: Mexican
Filler: Dominican
This cigar has a long and sometimes troubled history. The vintage line was started back in 1993 and was hailed as one of the greatest cigars from the R & J line until around 2000. Since then, for some reason the quality and consistency of this cigar has been routinely called into question. Perhaps it is due to the fact that around that time the factory, which was located in the Pisano Free Zone of Santiago, was relocated to La Romana on the eastern end of the island. Some believe this is when the quality and consistency began to decline. These, of course, are rumors and are to be taken as such.
The wrapper on this cigar is a skin tone color, very light brown, with no imperfections whatsoever. The tobacco used in these cigars are usually aged between 2-3 years before production. I should say before I start that my box has a consistency problem, the wrapper colors vary slightly as does the flavors the sticks produce. That might make this review a little less useful, but hopefully not. The construction on this cigar was really fantastic, the head is nice and long and even with a guillotine cut there were no unravelling issues. Pre-light draw tasted of nuts and licorice. Once toasted this cigar drew well and burned perfectly even the whole way through. The first inch was heavy on the nuts and licorice taste with a hint of sweetness, but by halfway that sweet turned sour and a tad bitter. After the middle point, the nuts were accompanied by heavy doses of cedar and this underlying bitterness that I honestly was not expecting. The finish is long and a tad metallic. I was a bit disappointed by this cigar and wish I could have given it a higher rating as I am a long-time fan of R & J’s (my first cigar was one) but this one was a little bit of a disappointment.