 The wine making industry of the Piedmont played a significant role in the early stages of the "Risorgimento" with some of the era's most prominent figures-like Camillo Benso, conte di Cavour and Giuseppe Garibaldi owning vineyards in Piedmont region and making significant contributions to the development of Piedmontese wines.The excessively high tariffs imposed by the Austrian Empire on the export of Piedmontese wines to Austrian controlled areas of northern Italy was one of the underlying sparks to the revolutions of 1848–1849.As in most of Italy, native vines are abundant in the land that the Ancient Greeks called "Oenotrua" (meaning "land of vines") and was subsequently cultivated by the Romans.