Opus X Review. May 2013: this may surprise you

[gumby]

As mentioned on another thread, I decided to break out a very old Opus X. This cigar was from around 1998-2000. The cello was more brown than golden and the band had a niced aged patina to it.
Now as most here know, I think Opus are an over-hyped, over priced cigar. But I thought that with this much age on it I should give it a whirl.
The cigar looked great but had a very tight draw. I had to really work at it to keep it lit and had to relight it four or five times. It burned somewhat unevenly.
Now for the taste review. This was one of the strangest cigar experiences that I can recall. It started off with a harsh maduro taste. Add that to the draw problems and if it hadn't been so old I would have tossed it. But about 1/4 in it got interesting. Loads of different flavors going on and somewhat interesting. But just about when it had my interest it turned into a one-dimensional dud. If it weren't for the fact that I was grilling had nothing better to do then I would have tossed it. It went out again so I ran inside to grab the veggies that I was going to grill. Once back outside I lit it up again and much to my surprise, the cigar became absolutely amazing for the last 1/3. It was till burning unevenly but the multitude of rich flavors was astounding. I actually hated to put in down. What a strange smoking experience.
Would I buy any more Opus or do Fuente's job of aging them? Absolutely not. But I am sure am glad that I gave this cigar a chance.