By Jay Amberg Bloomberg Lifestyles. Bloomberg.com.Thu, 24 Aug 2000, 11:37am EDT
Havana, Aug. 24 -- If you're a cigar lover and have a taste for Cuban food and culture, there'll be a lot to do in Cuba this fall and early winter.
Havana's Partagas factory will hold its cigar festival Nov. 11-14. The Partagas festival is celebrating the factory's 155- year anniversary as the oldest operating cigar factory in Cuba.
Abel Exposito Diaz, the manager of the La Casa Del Habano (LCDH) at the Partagas factory, said he expects the festival's annual dinner to be held at Havana's Hotel Nacional, the twin towered Havana landmark on the city's oceanfront promenade, the Malecon.
The dinner will include an auction of one-of-a-kind, specially manufactured cigars and humidors to commemorate the factory's 155th anniversary including the legendary Partagas Solomones, large perfecto-shaped cigars, one of the factory's benchmark cigars for special occasions.
Information on the Partagas Festival can be obtained by E- mailing Habanos SA, Cuba's global distributor and marketer of its cigars, at habanos@habanos.cu or by faxing the Partagas LCDH at 33-8060.
In December, the fertile farmland of Pinar del Rio province in southwest Cuba will serve as the backdrop for island's new cigar festival and trade show scheduled for Dec. 14-17.
At the festival, three simultaneous events will be held including an international scientific and technical workshop on the production of cigar tobacco, a tour of the Francisco Donatien cigar factory in Pinar del Rio, a visit to tobacco farms in the province and a cigar banquet.
One of the farms scheduled for a visit includes Vega Robaina, the plantation where the legendary tobacco farmer Don Alejandro Robaina grows what's arguably some of the best cigar wrapper in the world.
Robaina has been honored for his contribution to Cuba's cigar industry by having a Vegas Robaina cigar brand named in his honor.
Also in December, the Hotel Nacional will celebrate its 70th year of operation with the opening of the new Habanos Smoker's Club, catering to Cuban cigar smokers.
The club will join the Melia Cohiba's El Relicario Bar and the Hotel Cone de Villanueva cigar lounge as a meeting place for visiting cigar smokers in Havana.
The annual Habano International Festival and Trade Show 2001 will be held Feb. 19-23, 2001, in Havana.
The festival and trade show, sponsored by Habanos SA, annually attracts 800-900 global cigar aficionados to Cuba for a week's worth of seminars on Cuba's cigar industry.
After tourism and sugar, tobacco is Cuba's third largest source of hard currency.
For information on any of these events contact Habanos SA.
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