Viticulture Essential Edition rules refresher

Read the refresher

You're trying to finish with the most victory points, and the game ends in the year someone reaches twenty. You'll get there by planting vines, harvesting grapes, turning them into wine, and filling wine orders. Along the way you'll build structures and play visitor cards that bend the rules in your favor.

For setup, each player takes a vineyard mat and three field cards, worth five, six and seven, and lays them field side up across the top of the mat. Put your rooster above the wake up chart, your cork on the start space of the victory point track, and your wine bottle token on the lira symbol in the middle of the residual payment tracker. Pick the first player at random by drawing one of the players' roosters, and give them the first player token, the bunch of grapes. Then deal each player one red card and one blue card face up.

Your red card gives you two regular workers and tells you which cards to draw for your opening hand. Take those before resolving your blue card.

Your blue card gives you your grande worker, usually some lira, and a choice. You either start with a particular structure or take a few extra lira instead. A few blue cards offer an extra worker or a victory point in place of the structure. Starting with the first player and going clockwise, everyone makes that choice. Then discard the red and blue cards.

A few other things to keep in mind. Your vineyard mat, your available workers, your lira, and the number and type of cards you hold are all public. The victory point track goes down to negative five and no lower.

The game is played in years, and each year has four seasons followed by a year end.

In spring, starting with the first player and going clockwise, everyone places their rooster on an open row of the wake up chart and takes that row's bonus. The chart sets the turn order for the rest of the year, from row one down to row seven.

In summer, going in wake up order, each player either places one worker on a summer action and takes it immediately, or passes. Passing saves your remaining workers for winter. This continues around until everyone has passed.

In fall, no workers are placed. In wake up order, each player simply draws a summer or winter visitor card.

Winter works just like summer, but on the winter actions, and passing ends your year.

At year end you age your grapes and wine, take your workers back, and collect residual payments. Everyone then discards down to seven cards, the roosters come off the chart, and the first player token moves counterclockwise.

Now for the details, starting with the wake up chart. Row one is earliest and gives no bonus. Row two draws a vine card. Row three draws a wine order card. Row four gains one lira. Row five draws a summer or winter visitor card. Row six gains a victory point. Row seven gets you the gray temporary worker for the year, which works exactly like one of your regular workers and goes back to the chart at year end. So waking up later earns better bonuses, but you act later all year.

Next, how workers are placed. Each worker is used only once per year, so a worker placed in summer is gone for winter. You place one worker per turn, only on the current season's actions, and you must take the action you place on. How many spaces an action has depends on player count. With two players, only the leftmost space is open. With three or four, the left and middle spaces are open. With five or six, all three are open, and each space holds one worker. From three players up, one space on each action carries a bonus. The action is mandatory but the bonus is optional, and you can do them in either order. Your grande worker can go on an action even when all its spaces are full, and more than one player can do that on the same action. When it does, it gets no bonus. It only gets a bonus if you place it on an open bonus space like any other worker. The gain one lira cart at the bottom of the board is open in both summer and winter to any number of workers.

Here are the summer actions. Draw vine card draws one vine, and its bonus draws a second. Give a vineyard tour gains two lira, and its bonus gains one more. Build one structure means paying the cost printed on your mat and placing that structure token, and its bonus gains one lira. You can only have one of each structure. Play summer visitor card lets you play one summer visitor, and its bonus lets you play a second. The sell action lets you sell one or more grapes from your crush pad for one lira each if they're worth one to three, two lira for four to six, and three lira for seven to nine. The same action can instead sell one of your empty fields for the value on the card, or buy back a sold field for that same amount. Its bonus is a victory point. Finally, plant one vine, whose bonus plants a second vine.

Planting works like this. Put a vine card on a field, or stack it on vines already there. The total value of the vines on a field can never exceed that field's maximum of five, six or seven, and you can't plant on a sold field. Vines stay planted for the rest of the game unless something lets you uproot one back to your hand. Each vine shows red grapes, white grapes, or in the case of Pinot, one of each, with values from one to four. The basic one value red and white vines need nothing. Better vines show a trellis, an irrigation, or both, and you must have built those structures first.

Now the structures. The trellis costs two, and irrigation costs three. The yoke costs two and gives you a private action space you can use once a year, in either summer or winter. Put a regular worker on it, or your grande worker acting as a regular one, to uproot a vine or harvest one field. The cottage costs four and lets you draw an extra visitor card each fall. The windmill costs five and gives you a victory point when you plant a vine, at most once a year. The tasting room costs six and gives you a victory point when you place a worker on give a tour while you have at least one wine in your cellar, also at most once a year. Finally there are the medium cellar for four and the large cellar for six, and you must build the medium before the large.

Here are the winter actions. Draw wine order card draws one order, and its bonus draws another. Harvest one field has a bonus that harvests a second field. Make up to two wine tokens has a bonus that makes one extra. Play winter visitor card lets you play one winter visitor, and its bonus lets you play another. Fill one wine order has a bonus of one victory point. Training a worker costs four lira, and its bonus gains one lira. A newly trained worker can't be used until next year. You can have at most five workers plus your grande, not counting the temporary worker.

To harvest a field, add up all the red grape values on its vines to make one red grape token, and do the same for white. Each field can be harvested only once per year, and the vines stay put. Each spot on your crush pad holds one token. If the matching spot is taken, the new token drops to the next lower open spot.

To make wine, move a red grape to the same value on your red wine row, or a white grape to your white row. You can never combine two grapes of the same color into one wine. A blush combines one red and one white grape into a single token worth their total. It must be worth at least four and needs a medium cellar. A sparkling wine combines two reds and one white into a single token worth their total. It must be worth at least seven and needs a large cellar. Your small cellar only holds wines worth one to three. The medium cellar adds four to six, and the large adds seven to nine. If you don't have room for a value, the wine drops to the next lower open spot. Once wines are in the cellar, they can never be combined.

To fill a wine order, reveal the card from your hand. Then remove wine tokens of the types shown, each worth at least the number printed on it. Gain the victory points shown, and move your wine bottle up the residual payment tracker by the amount shown. It never resets, it tops out at five, and every year end you collect that many lira.

Visitor cards are played through the play visitor actions, with no extra worker needed for what the card does. You may only play a visitor if you can fully resolve it, including paying anything it asks of you. When a card says OR in capitals, you pick one of the two halves. Workers trained through visitors also wait until next year unless the card says otherwise. Upgrading your cellar means building the medium, or the large if you already have the medium.

At year end, every grape and wine you own goes up by one, to a maximum of nine. Wine can't age past three without a medium cellar, or past six without a large cellar. If a token can't age, it simply stays where it is.

As soon as any player reaches or passes twenty victory points, play continues through the end of that year, including the year end steps. There's no cap on points, and the player with the most points wins. Ties go to the player with the most lira. If still tied, compare the total value of wine in each player's cellar, then the total value of grapes on each player's crush pad.

A turn, played out

It is year 3 of a 4 player game, and it is winter. In spring you took row 2 on the wake up chart and drew a vine, so you act second all year. You spent 1 regular worker in summer, so your grande and 1 regular worker are left. You have built a trellis and a medium cellar, but no large cellar. Your 6 field holds a 4 value red vine, which you could only plant because of that trellis, and a 2 value white vine. That is 6 in total, right at the field's maximum. Last year's red grape sits on the 4 spot of your crush pad. Your cellar is empty. The blue player woke on row 1 and takes the bonus space on harvest one field. With 4 players only the left and middle spaces are open, so you put your regular worker on the other one and harvest your 6 field. The reds add up to a red grape worth 4, and the whites give a white grape worth 2. Your red 4 spot is already taken, so the new red drops to 3. The white goes on 2. The vines stay planted. Yellow and green then fill both spaces on make up to two wine tokens. Your grande goes there anyway. Because the action is full, it gets no bonus, so you make only 2 wines, not 3. All 3 grapes together would make a sparkling worth 9, but that needs a large cellar. Instead you combine the red 4 and the white 2 into a blush worth 6. That is at least 4, and your medium cellar holds values 4 to 6. The red 3 becomes a red wine worth 3. You could never merge those 2 reds into a single wine. You are out of workers, so you pass and your year ends. At year end everything ages. Your red wine moves from 3 to 4, which the medium cellar allows. The blush cannot reach 7 without a large cellar, so it stays at 6. Your bottle sits on 1 on the residual tracker, so you collect 1 lira. Your workers come home, and the first player token moves counterclockwise.