Much anticipated by deluxe smokers, the festival of connoisseurs and lovers of the world’s best cigars will this time around zero in on Partagas, a brand that will celebrate its 160th anniversary, followed by Hoyo de Monterrey’s 140th birthday, Romeo & Juliet’s 130th anniversary and Montecristi, that reaches 70 years of existence.

The smoke of good cigars will get media hype between February 21 and 25 during a festival that brings back memories about these trademarks’ origin, development and cultural contributions. This year’s big bash, including the opening and closing ceremonies, will take place at Pavilion 24 of the EXPOCUBA Fairgrounds.

The varied program will feature the traditional last-day auction and the presentation of the Habano Man of the Year Awards in four different categories: best producer, communicator, retailer and businessperson. In addition to the welcome cocktail at the National Museum of Fine Arts, attendants will participate in the Dealer’s Night, organized by a group of exclusive cigar marketers and salespeople from Canada.

The new edition will highlight cigars and their contribution to the island nation’s cultural values, traditions and customs, and how that impact has been reflected in music, fine arts and history. With a massive turnout of 800 people in the offing, half of them from other countries, two nations –China and Brazil- will come to the festival with full-fledged delegations for the first time ever.

Another fresh idea is the presentation of a guayabera –Cuba’s countryside garment of choice- under the Robaina trademark, one of the best-known names in the cigar-making industry both in Cuba and elsewhere. There’ll be visits to tobacco plantations in the outskirts of Havana and to the Tobacco Research Institute, also near the capital. The program includes a lunch break at a farm near Lenin Park, run by CIMEX, also in the outskirts of the nation’s capital.

Organizers have also planned grand tours around the Partagas and Dorados cigar factories, where visitors will talk to cigar rollers, experts and execs. Bassat Ogilvy Consejeros de Comunicación, a prestigious communication firm, will be in charge of providing the logistics and catering to attendants every step of the way. For this purpose, the company will count on the support of Havanatur and Gaviota, two Cuban travel companies.

The traditional Habano Sommelier Contest, the Third Whiskey & Cigar Challenge, and a sampling session of top-drawer stogies and Armagnac are also expected to draw huge crowds. The Cuban team to the Habano Sommelier Contest will be led by expert connoisseurs Orlen Guerra and Zudlay Napoles, winners of the national sommelier competition held recently at the Primavera Hall of the Havana Libre Tryp Hotel.

Mr. Guerra works as a sommelier at the Palacio O’Farrill Hotel, run by Cuban company Habaguanex in the nation’s capital, while his teammate, also a sommelier, operates in the well-known Floridita Restaurant in Havana. The contest –it started out four years ago during the 2002 festival- is an effort to link Cuban cigars with wine sommeliers working in fancy restaurants.