Rage against the machine

Hannah outlines why vineyard work can be incredibly divorced from the end product, and has some suggestions on how it can be rehumanised

I worked for lunch in lieu of pay for three weeks including labour day. Why doesn’t matter. What matters is I had the choice. Vine work for many is not a choice. It is not romantic, fun or games. It is uncertain, unskilled labour; the labourers getting by on minimum wage.

‘Je travaille dans les vignes’ evokes a very different picture depending on who you tell, whether it’s someone living in rural France or in a major city where you’re lucky if one hour’s pay will buy you a glass. Unlike, say, nurses, who are also underpaid but held in high esteem; the vine worker is considered low on the societal totem pole. Essential but low in caste.

I don’t use the word caste lightly. The minimum wage (in France, €10,15 an hour before taxes) is calculated by the minimum needed to exist. In Europe it will still buy you material comforts feudal kings never dreamed of. The problem is that if the minimum is your maximum, it’s hard to get ahead.

No step up

Humans like to get ahead. The sense of advancing i…