Ever dreamt of tending to your own vineyards? Waking up early in the morning to prune your favorite varietals as they form into juicy grapes ripe for the picking? Or perhaps you’ve always wanted to be a winemaker, crafting fine wine to sell to the rich and famous – or even just your friends and family.
Now you can – for $14.99.
In the newly released video game Terroir: A Winemaking Tycoon Game, the Sims of winegrowing and making, players control their own Bordeaux estate, which simulates the weather and environment of the famous wine growing region known for cabernet sauvignon.
Over the course of a (virtual) century, you’ll design the estate, choose what grapes to grow (including red and white varietals), manage the vineyard and business and, of course, make your own wine.
According to the game’s makers at General Interactive Co., “each type of grape needs to be crafted a certain way to achieve the best results, so you’ll have to learn and master each one.” Just like real life winemaking – only without the mess.
The game’s Creative Director, Mark Fillon, shares with Food & Wine that his own personal love for wine led to the creation of the game. “Most of the research was done by myself spending time in the library or researching the intricacies of viticulture and winemaking.” The design team released the game for people to test, which included wine industry folks around the world, including in California, who provided feedback on climate and soil types.
But, Fillon and his team didn’t take it too far – they still wanted the game to have that right mix of fun and geekiness, “We tried our best to incorporate as much of the actual processes of winemaking into the game, but at the end of the day, we had to make sure that the game was still playable and enjoyable,” he says in Food & Wine, because “some things in real life just don’t translate well into game mechanics.”