In the game, you find yourself in rustic, pre-modern Tuscany, where you've inherited a meager vineyard. You'll have a few plots of land, an old crushpad, a tiny cellar, 3 workers...and the dream of owning the best winery in Italy. Your job is to allocate your workers and helpful visitors to complete various tasks throughout the year. Each season is different on a vineyard, so the workers have different tasks they can take care of in the summer and winter. There's competition over those tasks, and often the first worker to arrive at each one has an advantage over the rest. Using those workers and visitors, you can expand your vineyard by building structures, planting vines, and filling wine orders as you work towards the goal of owning the most successful winery in Tuscany.

Viticulture is a 2-6 player game that takes 45-90 minutes to play.

The Essential Edition includes the second edition of Viticulture along with several elements from the original Tuscany expansion pack, hand-picked by famed designer Uwe Rosenberg.