5月6日，一場強烈而持久的冰雹襲擊了富恩特公司位于多米尼加共和國的農田。冰雹從天而降，將還沒有收獲的煙葉砸穿，摧毀了煙葉田里的粗棉布帳篷，還砸壞了煙葉倉和煙葉幼苗床。熱帶地區居然搞的像下了大雪，冰雹之后，農場的工人們開始鏟除那些覆蓋在倒塌的帳篷上的一堆堆冰塊。

遭到冰雹襲擊的這塊煙葉田大概有45英畝，風暴摧毀了大部分煙草植株。破損的煙葉無法再作為茄衣使用，風暴之后，煙葉田到處都是壓碎的煙草植株，煙葉上布滿了洞孔，看起來像是有人用獵槍射擊煙葉似的。幸運的是，另外120英畝的煙葉種植的較早，煙葉已經采摘完了，沒有遭受損失。

富恩特公司的老板小卡洛斯·富恩特告訴記者，“我們損失比較大，風暴持續了一個多小時，非常奇怪，出現了前所未有的積冰。”

富恩特城堡是一個農場，富恩特家族在這里種植煙葉，作為巨著X系列產品的茄衣煙葉，巨著X可是世界上最熱門的非古雪茄品牌之一。富恩特說這塊45英畝的煙葉田有90%的煙草植株遭到破壞。這塊田地在風暴發生前曾經采摘過一次。大多數煙葉都是分階段采摘的，一組有三個工人，從植株的底部到頂部，持續幾周時間。

除了煙草植株，富恩特農場的一些基礎設施也受到破壞。粗棉布的帳篷，電線桿，煙葉倉庫，發酵房，防止動物進入的圍欄設施等。

雖然損失比較嚴重，但是不是歷史上受災最嚴重的一次。雖然是一個事故，但不至于是世界末日。富恩特告訴記者，1998年的喬治颶風當時把農場的發酵倉庫掃蕩一空，以至于富恩特公司暫停了巨著X產品的生產，包括陳年茄的生產。

風暴發生之前，天氣都非常好，原本這是豐收的一年，這個階段已經是煙草生長的最后階段了。

恰巧的是，風暴發生那一天，是小卡洛斯的父親的忌日，老卡洛斯·富恩特在2016年的5月6日去世。

附參考文章：

An intense and long-lived hailstorm destroyed several acres of cigar tobacco at Chateau de la Fuente in El Caribe, Dominican Republic on May 6. Ice fell from the sky, blasting holes in unpicked tobacco leaves, tearing down cheesecloth shade, damaging curing barns and wrecking seedbeds. In the aftermath, it appeared as if snow had fallen in the tropics, with workers chipping away at piles of ice that had gathered on the collapsed tenting that normally covers the fields.?

The storm destroyed much of a 45-acre tobacco crop that was ready for harvest. Wrapper tobacco needs to be pristine, so any damage makes it unusable as cover leaf. Video from the storm’s aftermath shows crushed plants and leaves that were peppered with holes from the hail, making it look as if someone had blasted the tobacco with a shotgun. About another 120 acres worth of tobacco grown earlier in the season had already been picked, and was not damaged by the storm.

“We got hit pretty hard,” Carlos Fuente Jr. told Cigar Aficionado. “It was the strangest thing.” He said the storm lasted for more than a hour, and one of his workers told him that there was an “accumulation of ice never before seen in the region.”

Chateau de la Fuente is a farm where Fuente grows all of its wrapper leaf for the Fuente Fuente OpusX brand, one of the hottest cigar brands in the world. Fuente said that about 90 percent of the 45 acres of tobacco in the ground at the time of the storm had been destroyed or damaged. One priming from that field had already been taken. (Most cigar tobacco is harvested in stages, called primings, where workers remove leaves in groups of three, working from the bottom of the plant to the top, over a period of weeks.)?

In addition to all the tobacco, some of Fuente’s infrastructure was also destroyed: cheesecloth shade, poles, wires, even some damage to curing barns, warehouses and animal pens. “We’ve got damage to everything,” he said.

As bad as this was, it’s not as bad as other storms that have hit the farm. “It’s a bad thing, but it’s not the end of the world,” Fuente said. Hurricane Georges wiped the farm clean of its curing barns in 1998, resulting in Fuente temporarily halting production of OpusX (and the creation of A?ejo.) Fuente said this storm won’t affect this year’s shipments, but he will cut back somewhat next year, to plan for future shortages with the smaller-than-expected harvest.

Prior to this hail storm, the weather had been superb for Fuente’s harvest. “This was the very end of the crop. This was a very good year,” he said.

Fuente was particularly shocked at the date the storm occurred, which happened to be the birthday of his father, Carlos Fuente Sr., who died in 2016.?