THE SKILLED WORKERS
The burgeoning wine industry required labour to produce the “Marsala” product. That labour force was hired directly from the area and the number of those working in collateral jobs to produce “Marsala” also increased. These included master coopers, blacksmiths, carters and also glaziers and freight operators at a later date. A small, yet well-paid working class was created that was reasonably well off compared to all the other low wages. Not by chance, words noted by Pitrè (“Abballacci, my dear daughter, is master of a large farm!”) show the mother considered a worker in the wine industry was a good catch to associate with.
The skilled workers were mostly men and only a few businesses employed women during the bottling stages of Marsala wine.
THE COOPERS
This major craft in the area produced the casks and for over two centuries was closely linked to the great industrial wine production.
The coopers were craftsmen, who specialised in making the casks to keep the “Marsala” and were often housed in the wineries that provided them with the timber and iron to work with. This activity required maximum attention, precision and also experience in the choice of timber to use: staves mainly of durmast oak were seasoned, planed, curved and placed one next to the other and bound by concentric, iron hoops The cooper held a special position within Marsala society, as he was a direct witness of working life. Between the sixties and seventies, a new type of container was introduced in the field of oenology, which led to a drop in the wineries’ demand for casks and caused hundreds of workshops to close.
THE BLACKSMITHS
These workers were used to make the iron hoops to construct vats and casks and the iron trusses to roof the long warehouses.
CARTERS
They were in charge of transporting not only the grapes and must from
the countryside and storage areas to the factories, but also the wine from the
factory to the shipment points for the end product.
They used the “tow”, a low, four-wheeled cart with low sides
to better secure the barrel to the cart