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X Marks the Cigar

Michael Moretti
Posted: June 6, 2007

When it comes to cigars, the X belongs to Tabacalera A. Fuente y Cia., the cigarmaker that owns and produces the popular brand Fuente Fuente OpusX, among many others.

According to legal counsel representing Fuente, the company recently acquired a trademark for the letter X in association with cigars, due to the approximately 15 to 20 legal cases that have been filed since the brand's heralded launch in the mid-1990s.

Cigar brands that came onto the market sporting an "X" on their insignias have more often than not had to deal with Fuente attorneys. The latest brand to name its cigars with a letter X comes from Vilafonté Vineyards, a respected winery based in South Africa that is staging a cross-marketing campaign into the cigar industry. Launched last year and dubbed Series X -- following the same naming convention that characterizes the company's Series C (for Cabernet) and Series M (Merlot) wines -- the cigars were intended to complement one of the winery's red wines.

For more on this story, see the May 22 issue of Cigar Insider.