Partagás Serie D No.4 Reserva
This is an incredibly difficult cigar to find. Even when it was released in 2005, there were only 5,000 boxes produced. Manufactured with tobacco leaves specially selected from the 2000 harvest and aged for three years prior to being rolled, the cigars came in a small box that looked like a humidor. The cigars have the normal red Serie D band, but just below is a black and silver band reading “Reserva.”
- Cigar Reviewed: Partagás Serie D No.4 Reserva 2005
- Country of Origin: Cuba
- Factory: Francisco Pérez German
- Wrapper: Cuba
- Binder: Cuba
- Filler: Cuba
- Size: 4 7/8 Inches
- Ring Gauge: 50
- Vitola: Robusto
- Est. Price: $50.00
- Date Released: 2005
- Number of Cigars To Be Released: 5,000 Boxes of 20 Cigars (100,000 Total Cigars)
- Number of Cigars Smoked For Redux: 1
I have to say, I love the robusto size. It is almost like the perfect-sized cigar to me, not to short, not too long, and not too large a ring gauge. This Reserva was no exception, in fact, it was perfectly constructed. The stick was fairly spongy when squeezed, and the wrapper is a nice golden brown color that smelled of tobacco and just a bit of cinnamon. After punching it and taking a cold draw, there were strong flavors of oak and spice.
It lit very easily, and I immediately tasted a large amount of spice; not pepper, but spice. Also present was the always easy to identify Cuban sweetness, kind of a creamy, earthy sweet flavor.
In the second third of the cigar, the spice leveled off, but was still very present, and the dominant flavor was a great combination of sweetness and oak, with a little bit of what tasted like roasted nuts.
The final third was quite a bit more reserved then the first two. The spice almost disappeared, the cigar mellowed out quite bit, and the oak and sweetness were the main flavors. There was also just a touch of chocolate and it was very nice to taste after all the spice. These flavors made for a smoke that was extremely enjoyable to the end.
Final Notes
- This is a cigar with a lot of spice, but it never overwhelmed the other flavors that were present. In fact, it actually made them quite a bit more enjoyable, since I could taste the contrasts between them. I would categorize this as one of the smoothest and most complex smokes I have smoked till now.
- Interestingly, the ash did not stay on longer than about half an inch the entire stick.
- The burn and draw were perfect for the entire stick.
- Smoking time was exactly one hour and 36 minutes.
This is a cigar that I will remember for a long time. The wonderful combination of spice and sweetness is what quite a few cigars try and accomplish, and usually fail at. I had a heck of a time tracking them down, but I managed to get seven of them, and I will be waiting for the right time to smoke the rest of them. Basically, this stick was worth every penny I paid for it, and that is saying a lot.
Brooks Whittington
I have worn many hats in my life up to this point: I started out as a photojournalist for the Dallas Morning News and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, then transitioned to photographing weddings—both internationally and in the U.S.—for more than a decade. After realizing that there was a need for a cigar website containing better photographs and more in-depth information about each release, I founded my first cigar blog, SmokingStogie, in 2008. SmokingStogie quickly became one of the more influential cigar blogs on the internet, known for reviewing preproduction, prerelease, rare, extremely hard-to-find and expensive cigars, and it was one of the predecessors to halfwheel, which I co-founded.
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