Viticulture is one of my favorite games of all time. There is a beauty to that game, it flows so smooth regardless of player count and is a real joy to play. The Tuscany Essential is a necessity for it as well to really get the full experience. Recently I learned there was one more piece to the game I did not have yet and I was of course very excited to give it a try. Today I want to tell you a bit about that piece and what it adds to the game.
Viticulture’s expansion we are looking at today is titled “Visit from Rhine Valley”. This set introduces new visitor cards into the main game and is made up of 80 cards. 40 cards are summer visitors and 40 are winter visitors. The art is done by Beth Sobel, and co-design credits to Jamey Stegmaier and Tido Lorenz.
I’m going to pass going into detail on Viticulture overall in this review other than to say it is great and if you don’t already own it, stop now and go get it! When you are ready to explore extra material and expansions for it, then come on back here 🙂
The card backs are different and are meant to substitute in for the current visitors in the main game. These cards are unique from the main game cards, they put the focus more on the business of wine making instead of straight victory point accumulation.
Some of the cards are only used with the Tuscany edition and will need to be pulled if you plan to play it without the expansion. The art on these cards continues to be excellent and well done with vibrant characters and thematic titles and jobs.
Overall:
I really enjoy this game and the change of play that the cards bring. The core of this game is the wine making-it’s planting vines, harvesting fields and crushing those grapes into different types of wine. There are a number of cards in the base of this game that allow you to bypass that core mechanic and just score points for various objectives. The Rhine Valley cards really put the bonus and positives on finding ways to make that wine making process sing.
There was nothing that felt off to me with Viticulture. One thing this doesn’t do is “fix” the game because frankly there was nothing broken or bad about it to me. But what this does is give you another angle and a new way to look at the game from a strategic playing point. It is a definite must-add to the base for me and one I can see mixing in to normal plays of the game.
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