This year, I participated in the De Los Reyes Tour at Procigar 2025. My last visit to De Los Reyes was back in 2020, and I was looking forward to this tour, as the last one had been memorable. If you followed our pre-game coverage, you know that Procigar combines visits to agricultural and/or manufacturing facilities and incorporates different types of Dominican culture. That is what you get on the De Los Reyes Tour.
Background
De Los Reyes Cigars is owned by the Reyes family, which has almost 170 years of experience over six generations in all aspects of the cigar industry, including tobacco growing, leaf brokerage, and cigar production. Today, the company is run by Nirka Reyes, a sixth-generation member of the Reyes family.
One thing I’ve learned from covering Procigar for five years is that it is more than just farm and factory tours; it celebrates Dominican culture. In my opinion, Procigar is the best-run festival in the world, and the De Los Reyes Tour is one example of doing tours right and celebrating culture. (I won’t write about the cigar-making process here so I can focus on the festival.)
The Reyes family is as enthusiastic about the Procigar festival as anyone. This includes Nirka, her father, Augusto Reyes Sr., and the adopted Belgian in the Reyes family, Jean-Michael Louis, who handles operations.
The De Los Reyes Tour consisted of four components
- Tour of a Reyes’ Navarette Farm
- A pairing seminar with chocolate at Saga Restaurant
- Lunch at Saga Restaurant
- The De Los Reyes Factory Walk-Through
On a side note, it was great to see Phil Zanghi of Indian Motorcycle Cigars and Chris Topper of Topper Cigar Company on the tour. Both are longtime friends of mine, and both also have their cigars made at De Los Reyes.
Farm
We visited The Reyes farm in Navarette, northwest of Santiago de los Caballeros. Leo Reyes, the brother of Augusto Reyes and Nirka’s uncle, runs the farms and usually attends. He wasn’t feeling well today, but Emilio Reyes (Leo and Augusto’s brother) was there.
Many tobacco farms I have seen have pavilion areas, and De Los Reyes is no exception. We were treated to Dominican coffee and, of course, cigars.
One cool thing was the hangover station. Yes, they had relief available in case you had a hangover from the night before.
Nirka and Jean-Michel took us through germinating seeds to curing the harvested tobacco in the tobacco barn. We looked at Habano ’92 and Corojo 2006 tobaccos.
Pairing Seminar with Chocolate and Cigars at Saga Restaurant and Cigar Club
The De Los Reyes tour would not be complete without a visit to Saga Cigar Club and Restaurant. I’ve dubbed this place “the greatest restaurant on Planet Earth.” Saga Restaurant was founded by Augusto Reyes of De Los Reyes Cigars and offers Caribbean and International cuisine. As you would expect from the name “Restaurant and Cigar Club,” it is a place where you can smoke and eat. Here, we attended a pairings seminar and then enjoyed lunch afterward.
The seminar involved pairing chocolate and cigars. In this case, the chocolates came from Colors, a company based in the Dominican Republic. The company prides itself on high-end chocolate, focusing on transforming fresh cacao into the finished product. Colors provided four different chocolates for this exercise. The cigar being paired was the Don Julio Year of the Snake.
The Don Julio Year of the Snake is a soon-to-be-released cigar from De Los Reyes. Don Julio is the most premium cigar brand from De Los Reyes Cigars. It is named for Don Julio Samuel Reyes Fermin. Reyes is considered to be a legendary tobacco grower from the third generation of the Reyes family. The Year of the Snake is the latest installment from this line. The Don Julio Year of the Snake cigar blend is a Dominican puro that includes Dominican Habano, San Vicente, and Corojo 2012 tobaccos.
Nirka Reyes and Colors Chocolate conducted the seminar, and you can see a lot of time was put into preparing for it. I have to say, this was one of the most interesting pairings I’ve ever been a part of. The four chocolates used were also standouts.
Lunch Saga Restaurant
Following the seminar, it was time for lunch at Saga. We submitted our lunch orders while on the bus to stay on schedule. Here is the menu we were offered.
I opted for menu items that had a Dominican flair. First up was the traditional Dominican Sancocho (a Dominican Stew. This is quite a popular dish in the Dominican Republic
I chose Risotto de Chiva, another well-loved Dominican dish, for the entree. Risotto is widely enjoyed in the Dominican Republic, as is chiva, which is goat meat.
I consider Saga the greatest restaurant on Planet Earth because it consistently delivers excellent food with a delightful Dominican flair that I truly enjoy.
De Los Reyes Factory Walk-Thru
The day wrapped up with a visit to the De Los Reyes production facility, where they make premium cigars. Unfortunately, I did not have time to photoshoot the whole walk-thru, but I will say this is an efficient factory with an incredible charm.
The storage rooms where cigars are aged always fascinate me. The handmade premium cigar operation of De Los Reyes is smaller in scale compared to larger factories like Davidoff, but their storage room still holds 600,000 rolled cigars that are aging.
In terms of the charm, the cigar molds on the wall are a staple (you see a few of these at Saga restaurant too).
Before departing the factory on the bus, we were given gifts from De Los Reyes. This is a tradition on many of the Procigar tours. De Los Reyes combined elements of the trip with some of their cigars.
This included:
- Cigars and Colors Chocolate on a Wooden Board
- Dominican Coffee
- Dominican Cookies
- Saga Cuff Links (One of the most distinctive gifts I have received during a cigar tour.)
For those interested, the cigars were:
- Saga Short Tales Tomo II
- Saga Blend No 7 Robusto
- Saga Blend No 7 Perfecto
- Saga Blend No 7 Toro Gordo
- Don Julio Sang Bleu Gordo
- Saga Solaz Gordo
- Saga Short Tales Tomo VI (2019 Cigar Coop Cigar of the Year)
Following the day, it was back to the hotel to change and relax before heading to the Welcome Party at Parque Central. One programming note: This year, I shifted coverage away from “Day 1” and “Day 2” to a thematic format. We will cover all the evening events in a separate report.
Photo Credits: Cigar Coop
