Cigar Review: Montecristo Relentless Toro

Montecristo requires no introduction. The flagship Altadis brand has a spot at nearly every U.S. cigar retailer and boasts a portfolio of familiar lines, including Classic, Platinum, White, Epic, and Monte.

One line you won’t find on the Montecristo website, however, is Relentless. That’s because the Montecristo Relentless is exclusive to Famous Smoke Shop, a Pennsylvania-based online retailer. Famous markets Relentless as a cigar that “lives up to its name. It relentlessly pounds your taste buds with amazing flavor, while you experience a medium-bodied strength profile.”

The Relentless recipe includes an Ecuadorian Connecticut Shade wrapper, a Mexican San Andrés binder, and long-filler tobaccos from Nicaragua and Brazil (Mata Fina). It is offered in five sizes: Churchill (7 x 56, $12.50), Magnum (6 x 60, $12.75), No. 2 (6.1 x 52, $12.50), Robusto (5.5 x 48, $9.65), and Toro (6 x 54, $10.00).

Full disclosure: Famous sent me a sampler pack of Relentless Toros to make this review possible. As always, the samples Famous provided in no way impact my assessment of the cigar.

Several things strike me about the Relentless Toro upon initial examination. First, the band of red, black, and orange-ish yellow is huge and covers much of the wrapper. Second, once the band is removed, the beauty of the light, shade-grown wrapper comes into full view. It’s a clean, oily specimen, and the entire cigar exudes an overall feel of quality—from the neatly executed cap to the cross-section of tobaccos at the foot.

After setting an even burn, pre-light notes of oak and hay transition to a creamy, mild- to medium-bodied profile of cinnamon, roasted nut, and dry wood. The texture is bready and the resting smoke is sweet and enticing. There’s a nice interplay between sweet cream, bitter coffee, and some peppery spice on the finish. Those who take their time and smoke slowly will be rewarded with nuance.

Construction is excellent, as one would expect for the price. The burn is straight, the smoke production above average, the gray ash holds firm off the foot, and the draw has just the right amount of resistance. I should add, though, the wrapper is incredibly thin and fragile. Treat this cigar with the utmost care as you store it and smoke it. Any mishandling is sure to cause cracks.

Truth be told, the Montecristo Relentless Toro is a well-built, consistently reliable, tasty smoke with solid, well-balanced flavors. I would absolutely recommend this in the morning or afternoon with a complementary cup of coffee. That said, I think the price point is a tad high (around $7 seems more reasonable to me) and I’d be interested to try Relentless in the more condensed, narrower Robusto format. Still, the Relentless Toro is worthy of a solid rating of three and a half stogies out of five.

[To read more StogieGuys.com cigar reviews, please click here.]

–Patrick A

photo credit: Stogie Guys