This means that he carved a pit on the rock, which would be the bottom part of the winepress used for collecting the squeezed grape juice. Alternate translation: "carved a pit into rock for the winepress" or "he made a vat to collect the juice from the winepress" (See: [[rc://en/ta/man/jit/figs-explicit]])
The owner still owned the vineyard, but he allowed the vine growers to take care of it. When the grapes became ripe, they were to give some of them to the owner and keep the rest.