Karafe | You’ll love this exciting new game about wine.

San Antonio Express-News

jackstin — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 03:15:15 +0000

San Francisco Chronicle

jackstin — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 03:13:59 +0000

Washington Life

jackstin — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 03:05:11 +0000

TRANSACTIONS

jackstin — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 02:34:38 +0000

All transactions, with the exception of some of the cork cards, are done with the bank. In every case, when you calculate how much money or how many acres or how many tons of grapes or how many bottles you get – you always round up to the next available currency amount. In other words, if you are supposed to harvest 65 tons of grapes you will receive 100 tons because there are no 65 ton chips and you must round up to the next denominated amount.

WINE TASTE TESTS

jackstin — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 02:33:02 +0000

You’ll notice that on about 25% of the question cards instead of a question there will be the words – “wine taste test”. Here’s where the real fun begins. The person who gets a wine taste test must turn his or her head while the opponents pour a sip into their glass. Then they have to properly identify which bottle it came from in order to have successfully answered the question and be allowed to do what the space says. Here is where you use your notes from the tasting you did before you started actual play.

PLAYING THE GAME

jackstin — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 02:32:15 +0000

In the game everyone becomes a winemaker and goes through the process any winemaker normally would. First, you acquire capital, then you buy acres, then you harvest your grapes, then you bottle your wine and then you sell your wine. The first player rolls the die and moves the number of spaces indicated on the die. You may land on three different types of spaces – a cork card space – which means you have to take a cork card and do what it says, or a free space, which has a yellowish border – which means you get to do whatever the space says without answering a question, or a regular space which requires you to answer a question in order to do what the space says. If you land on a question space, the person to your right will ask you the next question. By the way, there are two levels of questions – sippers and connoisseurs so you can handicap the players. The more advanced players will answer the connoisseur questions and the beginners will answer from the sipper series. After answering the question, place the card at the back of the deck.

MISCELLANEOUS

jackstin — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 21:41:16 +0000

A few final instructions. You’ll notice that at one point on the board you have a choice of which direction to go. One choice is shorter and will get you to the finish line sooner. The other choice is longer and will give you more chances to answer questions correctly. The advantage of choosing the short cut is the first one finished gets a $50,000 bonus, obviously, the longer way gives you more chances to answer questions correctly and accumulate more assets. One last point, to keep the game moving along, don’t worry about your choice of what to do if you answer the question correctly until you have actually answered it right. This will save time and keep the game moving faster.

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OBJECT & GETTING STARTED

jackstin — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 21:40:04 +0000

Obviously, the object of the game is to win, but more important it’s to have a good time. So let’s start by opening 3 or 4 bottles of red or white wine. You’ll use those for the blind wine taste tests during the game. Everyone should take a taste of each bottle and make notes about its flavor, smell and look in order to help you identify it later. After you’ve done that – open up the game and place the cork cards anywhere on the board and place the money, acre cards, grape chips and bottle cards next to the game. Shuffle the question cards and replace them in their box. Players choose a colored bottle as their playing piece and you’re ready to go.

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DIFFERENT SPACE TYPES

jackstin — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 21:37:34 +0000

When you first start the game the regular spaces give you only one choice – to acquire money. So if you answer the question right or are lucky enough to have landed on a free space, you get the amount of money stated on that space. Soon, however, you will be landing on spaces that give you a choice of two things to do. For example, the first spaces with a choice will give you the option of acquiring more capital or buying acres. So you have a choice – you can do either, if you answer the question correctly. By the way, regardless of whether you answer the question correctly, you move forward on your next turn. The basic rule of the game is this – once you enter the next phase, that is, move from acquiring money to buying acres you can’t go back. In other words, once you start buying acres you can’t ever choose to get more money. The same holds true as you begin every new phase. For instance, you can’t harvest grapes again once you have started bottling your wine. However, you are not required to bottle all your wine during the same turn or spend all your money on acres at the same time – you can buy some and wait for a better price later.

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BASIC STRATEGY

jackstin — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 21:32:05 +0000

So what choice should you make when you have an option. This depends on how well you have done on the prior spaces and the values on the current space. It’s a good idea to take a few minutes at the beginning of the game to look at the gameboard and see how the spaces relate to one another. It is important to know that you can acquire money as many times as you would like, but once you spend all your money on acres you can’t buy anymore. However, you can harvest your acres as many times as you correctly answer the question on a harvesting space. Of course, once you have bottled all your grapes you can’t bottle anymore. Once you’ve played the game a couple of times you will have a better feel for how to decide which choice to make. The most important thing to know is that you must not pass an entire phase without answering at least one question correctly or you will lose the game, since if you have no money you can’t buy acres or if you don’t buy acres you have nothing to harvest and if you don’t harvest you don’t have grapes and if you don’t have grapes you can’t bottle wine and if you have no bottles you have nothing to sell. So make sure you never pass an entire phase without answering at least one question in that phase correctly.

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