Game Guide Rules verified Sep 2026

Viticulture Essential Edition

Build a Tuscan vineyard through seasonal worker placement, plant vines, make wine, host visitors and fulfill wine orders across a competitive agricultural economy.

♟1–6 Players◷45–90 Minutes▣2015⚙Medium◆Seasonal Workers

Develop a Tuscan vineyard by placing workers in summer and winter action spaces, planting vines, harvesting fields, making wine and fulfilling wine orders.

Visitors, buildings and the Grande Worker add flexibility to the seasonal worker-placement system. Victory comes from turning the vineyard engine into fulfilled orders and other prestige gains.

Why We Love It

Viticulture links worker placement to a seasonal production cycle. Actions that look efficient in summer may only become valuable after winter, so planning a year means sequencing vines, grapes, wine and orders rather than optimizing one isolated turn.

About Viticulture Essential Edition

Develop a Tuscan vineyard by placing workers in summer and winter action spaces, planting vines, harvesting fields, making wine and fulfilling wine orders.

Visitors, buildings and the Grande Worker add flexibility to the seasonal worker-placement system. Victory comes from turning the vineyard engine into fulfilled orders and other prestige gains.

Game at a Glance

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Place Workers by Season

Summer and winter actions create a natural timing puzzle across each year.

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Plant and Harvest

Build fields and vines, then convert their value into grape tokens.

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Make and Age Wine

Transform grapes into wine that can improve over later years.

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Fulfill Orders

Convert mature wine and supporting effects into victory points.

What is Viticulture Essential Edition?

Viticulture Essential Edition is Stonemaier Games’ streamlined vineyard-management version of Jamey Stegmaier’s Viticulture. Players inherit modest wineries in Tuscany and use workers, structures, vines, grapes, wine and visitor cards to build a profitable operation.

The current Stonemaier listing supports 1–6 players in 45–90 minutes and classifies the game as medium weight.

How the game works

The year is divided into seasons. Summer actions handle jobs such as planting vines, building structures and giving tours, while winter focuses on harvesting, making wine, training workers and filling wine orders.

Worker placement is competitive: action spaces are limited, and player order affects which spaces remain available. Visitors provide tactical exceptions and bonuses that can alter the standard rhythm.

The decisions that define it

The main planning challenge is sequencing. Planting without cellar capacity, making wine without matching orders, or expanding structures before the economy can support them creates wasted tempo.

Turn order matters because early access to an action can be more valuable than the bonus you give up elsewhere on the wake-up track.

Who is it for?

Choose Viticulture if you want a thematic worker-placement game with medium complexity, long-term production planning and meaningful timing competition.

For a card-heavy seasonal worker-placement game, compare Everdell.

Learn Viticulture Essential Edition in depth

Viticulture expansions

Compare Viticulture expansions · Tuscany Essential Edition

Publisher sources & scope

Checked September 15, 2026. This hub covers the identified current base or standalone edition. Use the publisher rules for exact card and module interactions.

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