Labour

Viticulture, unlike winemaking, has long required a substantial input of labour. The Romans used slaves while monks and monasteries played an important part in medieval vine-growing. A peasant class was long necessary to maintain viticulture in Europe, and increasingly vineyard labour was paid for by leasing part of the vineyard to the labourer, share-cropping or, in French, métayage. The close association between vine-growing and humans began to alter towards the end of the 20th century, however, mainly because of changes in technology.