Gugsto.it announces the birth of a new club reserved for authentic enthusiasts of slow smoking and bien vivre. Convivial gatherings, tastings and evenings in refined venues, among handmade cigars, wines, spirits, cuisine and unhurried conversations. Membership is free, but not automatic: the Dolce Vita Cigar Club is a “Members & Invited Guests Only” club.
There are pleasures that lose their meaning when they become a form of display. The cigar is one of them. It is not an accessory to show off in a photograph, a pass to exclusive environments or a pretext for taking part in a tasting free of charge. It is time taken away from haste, curiosity, knowledge, the ability to listen and, above all, the desire to share. From this idea, the “Dolce Vita Cigar Club” is born in Rome.
The name recalls a period of Italian style that did not simply coincide with luxury. The “Dolce Vita” was the pleasure of being together, spontaneous elegance, a taste for beautiful places and pleasant conversations capable of continuing until late. It was Rome when it knew how to be international without giving up its own identity, sophisticated without becoming artificial.
It is this spirit that the Dolce Vita Cigar Club wants to bring back into the present, without affected nostalgia and without imitating worlds that no longer exist.
A Club for True Enthusiasts
The “Dolce Vita Cigar Club” is born as a meeting place for those who consider the cigar part of a broader culture of buon vivere. We do not intend to promote “smoking” in a generic sense, but to learn about and tell the story of the handmade cigar: Italian, Cuban, Caribbean or originating from other international traditions.
Every manufacture has a story. Every territory brings its own climate, soil, agricultural techniques, the skill of the torcedores and sigaraie, and the knowledge accumulated through generations into its tobacco. Lighting a cigar also means approaching this heritage and learning to recognise it without dogmas, preconceived rankings or the attitudes of initiates.
Connoisseurs, collectors, ordinary enthusiasts and people who are only now beginning to explore the world of slow smoking will be able to meet in the Club. The experience must not turn into ostentation, and expertise will not be used to establish hierarchies: those who know more will be able to share what they know, while those taking their first steps must feel free to ask questions.
We are not looking for extras. We are looking for people.
Conviviality Above All
The cigar often reaches its finest expression when accompanied by a table, a glass chosen with care and intelligence, and a good conversation. For this reason, the “Dolce Vita Cigar Club” will not be merely a space devoted to technical tastings.
We will organise convivial evenings, dinners, themed meetings and pairings with quality wines and spirits: rum, whisky, Cognac, Armagnac, grappe and other expressions capable of engaging in a dialogue with tobacco. There will be room to explore manufactures and territories in greater depth, but also for the simple pleasure of sitting together and allowing the evening to find its own rhythm naturally.
The gatherings will take place in refined venues consistent with the philosophy of Gugsto.it: restaurants, hotels, terraces, residences, cocktail bars and spaces capable of offering beauty, authenticity and hospitality that does not feel contrived. We will not necessarily pursue the most expensive or fashionable place, but the right one: a place where food, drink, atmosphere and service can come together to create an experience.
The programme of gatherings will be communicated through the Facebook group dedicated to the “Dolce Vita Cigar Club”, which will be the main digital channel for information and discussion among members.
Doors Open to Passion, Closed to Vanity
Conviviality requires openness, but also a selection based on behaviour and style. The “Dolce Vita Cigar Club” will be open to authentic enthusiasts and to “persone per bene”, as we say in Italy, while remaining closed to characters looking for an audience, fantasists and those who see every event as an opportunity for self-promotion, speculation or opportunism.
It may sound like a severe statement, but it is simply a form of respect towards all those who will contribute their time, expertise, availability and resources to the gatherings. A Club lives through the human quality of its members even before the prestige of the bottles opened or the cigars lit.
The number of followers, displayed titles, proclaimed connections or photographs with more or less famous people will not matter. What will matter are good manners, curiosity, reliability and the ability to spend time together without continually occupying centre stage.
Exclusivity, in this case, will not depend on income or social status. It will depend on the way one behaves.
How to Join the Dolce Vita Cigar Club
Membership will be free and may be requested by writing to valiag@hotmail.it. A positive reply from President Guglielmo Valia will constitute confirmation of admission and completed membership.
Alternatively, it will be possible to request admission to the dedicated “Dolce Vita Cigar Club” Facebook group. In this case too, approval of the request will be equivalent to admission to the Club.
Sending an email or requesting access to the group will not automatically make someone a member. The Dolce Vita Cigar Club is, in fact, founded according to the “Members & Invited Guests Only” principle, and only admitted members and expressly invited guests will be allowed to take part in its gatherings and events.
Free membership will not, of course, mean that events are free of charge. The costs, participation arrangements and contents of each evening will be communicated in advance and transparently when the event is announced.
An Ideal Room in the City
Rome possesses all the elements needed to become the natural setting for a Club devoted to bien vivre: terraces overlooking history, hotels that preserve the meaning of hospitality, restaurants capable of interpreting tradition and cocktail bars where drinking well once again becomes culture.
What is often missing is a thread capable of connecting these places with the people who wish to experience them in the same way. The “Dolce Vita Cigar Club” aims to be precisely this: not a physical headquarters, at least for now, but an ideal room that can be reassembled each time in a different place.
It is not being created to replace the associations that have promoted cigar culture in Italy, nor to claim any primacy. It is being created to embrace their finest spirit and interpret it according to the sensibility of Gugsto.it: curiosity, independence, the pleasure of discovery and attention towards everything that possesses an authentic story.
The Luxury of Not Being in a Hurry
We live in a time that transforms every experience into content and every encounter into an opportunity to appear and/or speculate. Slow smoking represents the exact opposite: it forces us to wait, prevents us from accelerating and invites us to give value to time and to the people with whom we spend it — not to danaro.
The Dolce Vita Cigar Club is born to defend this small luxury: not the privilege of excluding, but that of choosing carefully; not the pursuit of appearances, but the quality of the experience; not the cigar as a trophy, but as an opportunity to meet.
We would like every evening to leave something behind: a discovery, a friendship, an unexpected flavour or a conversation worth remembering. If that happens, we will have achieved our most important purpose. The rest will be a good cigar, lit at the right moment.
