A rich wine with a rich history
Robert Strangways Wigley, a former state cricketer and lovable eccentric purchased 240 acres of land in McLaren Vale, South Australia in 1894 and established the Wirra Wirra winery. It was a burgeoning era for McLaren Vale as a wine region and Wirra Wirra was a major player with a reputation for quality. Wigley died in 1926 which led to the winery’s closure in 1936 and the beautiful ironstone cellars of Wirra Wirra were left to ruin.
In 1969 another visionary saw two crumbling walls and a stubborn slate fermenter and had a dream to resurrect Wirra Wirra to its former glory. Richard Gregory Trott, known as Greg, enlisted his cousin Roger and together they purchased the site, spending the next three years counting pennies, hauling rocks and rebuilding the bones of Wirra Wirra. Greg’s love for building and dreaming continued until his passing in 2005, yet his legacy lives on.
Church Block was the first wine Greg produced under the Wirra Wirra label back in 1972. He took the name from one of the original vineyards, which runs next to the small Bethany Church across the road from Wirra Wirra’s century old ironstone cellars.