Wine Cellar: A Refined Game of Bidding and Collection

Build an elegant wine cellar, scoring maximum points for aging each bottle of wine to perfection.

Published by 25th Century Games, Wine Cellar is designed for 1-8 players and plays in 20 minutes.

Gameplay

Each player is dealt a hand of eight wine cards, and one card for each player is placed face-up in the center of the table to form the display. A wine card has a bidding number on it, as well as how many points it is worth depending on which spot, ranging from one to eight, it lands in a player’s wine cellar. Each wine card also shows a wine type, and a country of origin. At the start of the game, each player will be dealt two goal cards and chooses one to keep — these cards will give a player bonus points for collecting certain types of wine and wine from certain countries.

Every turn, all players will choose one card from their hand to be their bid that turn. The cards are all revealed simultaneously. Players then take turns, going in order of highest played bid card to lowest, selecting a wine card from the display and placing it in front of themselves into their wine cellar. After the first card, all additional cards must be added on top or on the bottom of all previous cards there. Players cannot slide cards between other cards.

After everyone has selected their cards from the display, which will now be empty, all wine cards used for bidding that turn are then moved to the center of the table to form the new display.

There are eight turns to the game. Afterwards, the wine cards are scored based on their placement in the wine cellar, players score their goal cards, and the player with the most points wins.

Review

Wine Cellar is a simple game that plays quickly, but does have some interesting choices at its heart. Players balance the bid numbers in hand with the cards currently in the display, their point values, and where they can be added into a wine cellar. They also need to keep in mind that any card they play will also be added to the display next round, as well as their personal goal cards.

Maybe there’s a card in hand you really want in your wine cellar? If you play it now, will you have a high enough bid card to claim it next round?

The game looks really pretty, and a lot of detail has been put into the design of the cards — this was a theme the producers of this game clearly loved. It’s a case of the theme and the mechanics complementing each other well. That being said, it feels like a theme that pigeonholes the game for an older audience, and even for adults, there are some players who might be uncomfortable with the theme if they try to avoid alcohol.

There’s a wide player count range, and it does seem to work pretty well across it, without adding a lot of time to a game. The theme won’t be everyone’s cup of tea (or cup of wine!), but it’s an elegant game that feels thoughtful and well put together.

Pros: Theme and mechanics pair together very well, attractive components, scales well across player counts

Cons: Theme sets the game aside for an older audience

Disclosure: we received a complimentary review copy of this game.