Game rules

Viticulture Essential Edition rules: how to play and how to score

Reviewed on 16 October 2026 against the publisher’s rulebook. How we check

Viticulture plays 1 to 6 players: everyone runs a winery in Tuscany, from vine to wine order. Here are the essential rules, the game end and setup, based on the official rules of the Essential Edition.

Players: 1 to 6
Play time: 45 to 90 minutes
Winner: Most victory points, at the end of the year someone reaches 20

Viticulture Essential Edition quick rules

The goal: Everyone plants vines, harvests grapes, makes wine and fills wine orders, which bring in most of the victory points. As soon as a player reaches 20 points, you finish the current year, and the most points wins.
A year in four seasons: In the spring, each player places their rooster on the wake-up chart: waking early lets you play first, waking late gives a better bonus. In the summer and then the winter, players place workers on that season’s actions. In the fall, everyone draws a summer or winter visitor card.
Placing workers: Each player places one worker at a time, or passes for the rest of the season. Each worker is used only once a year, and the number of spaces per action depends on the number of players. Some spaces give an optional bonus; the grande worker can go on an action that is already full, without the bonus.
Summer actions: Draw and plant vines, without exceeding the field’s number; build a structure such as a trellis, irrigation or a cellar; give a vineyard tour for 2 lira; sell grapes or a field; play a summer visitor. One space also lets you gain 1 lira, in summer and winter alike.
Winter actions: Harvest a field, once a year: one red and one white grape token, worth the value of the vines. Make up to two wine tokens, draw and fill wine orders, play a winter visitor, train a worker for 4 lira, who will play the following year.
Wine and cellars: A red grape makes a red wine of the same value, a white grape a white wine; you never combine two grapes of the same color. One red and one white make a blush wine, with a medium cellar; two reds and one white make a sparkling wine, with a large cellar. Without a medium cellar, a wine cannot go above 3; without a large cellar, not above 6.
Wine orders: A wine order asks for wines of a minimum value: you remove them from your cellar, immediately gain its victory points and move your wine bottle up the residual payment tracker. At the end of each year, it pays you as many lira as its position, 5 at most.
Year end: Grapes and wine age by one, up to what your cellar allows. Workers return, residual payments are collected, everyone keeps 7 cards at most, and the first-player token passes to the right.
Game end and scoring: As soon as a player reaches or passes 20 points, you finish the current year. There is no final scoring: the most points on the track wins. On a tie, the most lira wins, then the highest total value of wine in the cellar, then of grapes on the crush pad.
Beginner pitfalls: You can only place a worker if you can take the action, and a visitor can only be played if it can be fully resolved. A field can only be harvested once a year. Build the medium cellar early, and keep workers for the winter, the season of wine and wine orders.
Solo: You face the Automa for 7 years, using the two-player action spaces. Its cards place workers that block actions. Its cork starts on the End space, at 20 points: you win if you finish ahead of it.

How to score Viticulture Essential Edition

Victory points: Your position on the track at the end of the year in which a player reached 20 points. From −5 upward: there is no maximum.
Lira left (tie-breaker): No points: on a tie, the most lira wins.
Wine value in cellar (tie-breaker): No points: next, the highest total value of the wine in your cellar.
Grape value on crush pad (tie-breaker): No points: last, the highest total value of your grapes.

Worked example

Emma reaches 21 points in the summer: you finish the year. At the end of the winter, Emma and Jake both have 24 points. Emma has 3 lira, Jake 5: Jake wins. With equal lira, you would compare the total value of their wine, for example 4 + 7 = 11 for Emma against 9 for Jake.

Common mistakes

Ending the game as soon as someone reaches 20: you always finish the current year.
Capping scores at 25: the cap of the early editions was removed.
Counting lira as points: they only break ties.
Forgetting that a score can be negative, down to −5.

How to set up Viticulture Essential Edition

Setup takes a few minutes. Follow the first three parts; for solo, add the last one. The first player is chosen at random.

The game board

Place the game board in the middle of the table.
Shuffle the vine, wine order, summer visitor and winter visitor cards separately, and place each deck on its spot.An empty deck is reformed from its discard pile.
Place the gray temporary worker on the last row of the wake-up chart.Whoever chooses row 7 in the spring gets it for the year.
Set up a supply of lira and grape and wine tokens.

Each player

Each player takes a vineyard mat and the components of their color: workers, structures, rooster, cork and wine bottle.
Each player places 3 field cards worth 5, 6 and 7 on their mat, field side up.A field’s number is the total vine value it can hold.
Each player places their rooster near the wake-up chart, their cork on the start of the victory point track and their wine bottle in the middle of the residual payment tracker.Points can go down to −5, never lower.

Starting resources

Choose the first player at random: they take the first-player token.
Deal each player one red card and one blue card, face up.Advanced variant: two of each, keep one of each.
Each player takes 2 workers and draws the cards shown on their red card.This is the opening hand, taken before the blue card.
In turn order, each player takes their grande worker and the lira on their blue card, and makes the choice it offers.A structure already built, or a few extra lira.
Discard the red and blue cards.

Solo

Place the Automa’s cork on the End space of the victory point track, at 20 points.
Place a glass token on each row of the wake-up chart.Your rooster can only go on a row that has one.
Shuffle the Automa cards next to the wake-up chart.
Remove the visitor cards that only help when another player takes an action.

Frequently asked questions

How many points do you need to win Viticulture?

Reaching 20 victory points triggers the end of the current year; the most points then wins, even above 20.

Who wins a tie in Viticulture?

The player with the most lira, then the highest total value of wine in the cellar, then of grapes on the crush pad.

Can you make blush wine without a medium cellar?

No: blush wine requires a medium cellar, and sparkling wine a large cellar.

Ludingo’s Viticulture Essential Edition sheet was last reviewed on 16 October 2026, based on: dropbox.com, stonemaiergames.com 1, stonemaiergames.com 2, BoardGameGeek.