One of the more frequent questions I get asked in the cellar door is ‘where does the Schoolhouse Block Shiraz’ get its’ name? The answer is a little more complex than you might think.
The most simple answer is that the wine takes its name from the block which it’s picked from – the Schoolhouse Block is the block which the cellar door looks out on and is a unique bench of river gravel soils deposited several millennia ago. The gravel came from the Wollombi Brook, which the property fronts still today, as the waterway moved steadily to the north over thousands of years.
It’s this bench of gravel that makes Schoolhouse Block Shiraz unique, not only in the Broke Fordwich region but in the wider Hunter Valley, and indeed was a primary reason the land was purchased by the Tedder family in 1993.
But why is the block called ‘Schoolhouse’?
On the western edge of the property, directly opposite the block, lies an old, quite dilapidated, wooden structure. We don’t know too much about it, but the structure is believed to have been the original School House for the Broke district, possibly known as Western Broke School House. The building has not been used as a school, much less anything else, for a very long time – likely over 100 years, possibly as many as 150. We really can’t say for sure.
It’s fitting that a unique wine, such as the Schoolhouse Block, takes on a name of a very unique feature of the property at Glenguin.
The 2014 Schoolhouse Block, from the best vintage seen in the Hunter Valley for over a generation, is among the best wines we’ve ever made and the high praise, from critics and customers alike, keeps coming in. In the 2017 Halliday Wine Companion, it was rated at 97 points, drinking to 2044. Order yours today.
