You have just inherited a miserable vineyard in the Tuscan countryside. All you own is a piece of land, an old press, a tiny cellar, three workers... and the dream of owning the best vineyard in Italy.
Your task will be to manage a team of employees and invited specialists. Wine production is a year-round occupation, and each season is characterized by different challenges, so that workers will do different jobs in winter and different ones in summer. With the help of employees and guests, you will expand your vineyard by erecting additional buildings, planting vines and fulfilling orders for wines, all the while getting closer to realizing the dream of creating the best vineyard in Tuscany.
Viticulture is a strategy game based on worker placement mechanics, in which you will plunge into the world of old-fashioned Tuscan vineyards, where strategic planning is equally important next to the ability to produce wine.
The game in Viticulture takes place in rounds, called years. Each year is divided into 4 stages (seasons). During the game, players deploy their employees and play Guest cards to perform different tasks in different seasons. In the spring, the order of players for a given year is determined. In the summer, players deploy workers on the action fields to plant vines and build structures to improve the vineyard.
These actions are the subject of competition between players and usually the first player undertaking a given action will have an advantage over the others. Autumn is the time to invite guests to help employees. In winter, players again deploy workers on the fields of action, but this time to gather grapes, produce wines and fulfill orders for the supply of wines. The goal of the game is to earn as many Victory Points as possible, representing the player's reputation as the owner of the vineyard.
The game has won the recognition of players from all over the world (it is on the 20th place in the ranking of the best games of the BoardGameGeek.com), and this edition (Essential Edition) consists of the second edition of Viticulture enriched with several elements from the Tuscany add-on personally selected by the famous game author Uwe Rosenberg. The indisputable advantages of the game are: accessible rules, high replayability, great scalability, variety of games, challenging players, climate and linking rules with mechanics, beautiful performance, the ability to play solo.