Romeo y Julieta To Highlight 2020 Habanos Festival – Cigar Aficionado
Romeo y Julieta, which is celebrating its 145th anniversary, will be the featured cigar at the gala dinner concluding the 22nd annual Festival del Habano. The dates for the 2020 Festival are February 24 to 28.
Habanos has so far declined to issue any specific details of the sizes, but in past years, dinner guests are usually provided with four or five different cigars from the featured brand.
The festival kicks off with a special edition Bolivar, a Reserva Cosecha 2016. There is speculation that the cigar will be a Belicoso Fino, the most iconic size in the brand’s lineup (and a frequent Cigar Aficionado Top 25 cigar), but there is no confirmation yet.
Other cigar highlights of the week include a new La Casa del Habano exclusive cigar, called a Herederos, celebrating the 30th anniversary of the chain of retail shops. There will also be a special 85th anniversary Montecristo. Both cigars will be released on Wednesday night during the Festival. Details were not given about these cigars either.
The program for the Festival del Habano includes all the usual activities scheduled for this gathering, which brings together cigar retailers, distributors and fans from around the world. This year, the visit to tobacco farms will be to Partido, in the area around San Antonio de los Baños, which is much closer to Havana than the Vuelta Abajo and Pinar del Río, where the tours usually occur, and factory visits of the La Corona and Partagás cigar factories.
Other activities include the trade show, which draws exhibitors from more than a dozen countries, as well as several seminars, including a demonstration of rolling cigars, and several presentations about the history of Cuban cigars. The Habanos World Challenge, a Jeopardy-like game show event with teams of two people from around the world, will be repeated this year. The teams are usually sponsored by one of the global distributors of Cuban cigars.
The week also includes three special evening events, the Monday welcome reception, the Wednesday event and the Friday night dinner, which concludes with an auction of large, special-edition humidors with proceeds going to Cuba’s national health system. Last year the auction raised 1.5 million euros ($1.7 million).