“Wine is sunlight, held together by water.” – Galileo Galilei, 1564-1642.

A very old saying that for us wine lovers represent the poetic passion that we feel when pop the cork of out favorite bottle, take in the nose and close our eyes as we put the glass to our lips. And somewhere along the line a wine enthusiast like myself had the idea to turn that passion into a video game. Genius. I myself am very excited about this upcoming PC release. And for those of us who believe that the best wines still come from France you will be glad to know that the game takes place in some of the countries most important wine regions. Slated for an October 2009 release (the same time as France’s harvest), those with interest will not have to wait all that long.

What does the game entail? Take a look.

In Wine Tycoon you must build your winery, plant and tend your vines through
all four seasons of the year, and hire staff to harvest and process your grapes. All this builds towards the goal of becoming a successful wine Baron. You will produce fifty different wines using forty different grape varieties. Areas such as Burgundy, Bordeaux, Languedoc and Rhône (amongst others) are where you will make a great wine – each region has it’s own grape varieties and flavor characteristics.

Two levels of game play will be available: Career and Free Play. Each come with their own tutorial. Anyone familiar with the micromanaged style of the ‘Tycoon’ games should be able to jump right in. Truth be told this will be the first in the line of games that I actually want to purchase – then again I am a wine freak.

I’m a level 2 certified wine consultant from the WSET based in London. That being said I do have concerns with the factual basis of the game. A lot of people think that Burgundy, Bordeaux, Chablis and such are styles of wines when in fact they are areas in France (Burgundy is the birthplace of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir while Bordeaux gave the world Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot amongst many others). Californian box wine companies have tried to market the names of these areas as styles of wines – which is why people think that these names represent shitty wines. I hope that the developers and producers take the time to study the source material properly so they don’t further these sort of inaccuracies.

Overall I think this is going to be a great addition to a PC library. What do you think gamers? An interesting direction for the series or a waste of time? Let us know.