Wine Cellar is a truly lovely game that’s all about gathering bottles of wine. As you play, you’ll build up a collection of 8 bottles. At the end, you’ll tally up your points to see who is the winner.
To start, each player gets 8 cards. These cards are used for bidding against each other at the same time. The number in the top left corner of each card shows how strong it is for bidding.
Each round, a set of cards appears in the middle of the table. The number of cards matches the number of players. Everyone gets to choose one of these cards. The tricky part is that you don’t know what others are bidding until everyone has played their card at the same time. The player who played the card with the highest number gets to pick their card first.
Once all the cards for the round are taken, the cards that players used for bidding become the new cards for the next round. This means the cards you play now will affect what’s available later.
When you collect wine bottles, you have to stack them sideways, one on top of the other. You can only add a new bottle to the very top or the very bottom of your stack. You can’t slip a new bottle in the middle of an existing stack.
At the end of the game, you get points for each bottle based on the numbers shown on its label. For the first bottle in your stack, you score the first number. In the example shown, that’s just 1 point. For the second bottle, you score the second number, which is 8 in this case. You continue this for every bottle in your stack.
Looking at the picture, the player scored full points for every bottle except the first and third. This means they have a really good collection of wine. If they were to drink these wines in the order they are stacked, they would have aged perfectly by the time they got to each one.
When you first set up the game, you’ll get two client cards and have to choose just one. These cards give you extra points if you collect certain types of wine or wines from specific countries. So, you need to think about these clients when you’re deciding which wines to go for.
The main idea of the game is pretty straightforward. Every round, you need to figure out which cards would help you the most. If there’s a card you really want, you might need to use a strong bidding card to make sure you get it.
At the same time, you should also pay attention to what kinds of wines your opponents are trying to collect. If the wine you want isn’t interesting to them, you might not need to bid so high. If you happen to have a really good wine card in your hand that’s perfect for you, you could plan to bid it in one round and then try to win it in the next.
When you’re stacking your bottles, it feels better to start building your stack from the middle. This way, you can add new bottles to either the top or the bottom as the game goes on. It gives you more options.
I might be making the game sound a bit complicated with all these things to think about, but it’s actually quite simple. It works well even if you don’t analyze every little detail. You can definitely play it in a relaxed way. That’s how I played it, and it’s a great game for casual play. It’s easy to teach to people who don’t usually play board games. For experienced gamers, it’s a nice quick game to fill in some time.
