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Working together, Walter and his father became pioneers for these varieties in New York and the United States. He did a most Walter-like thing and seized the opportunity to start his own wine business, returning to the original Taylor land on Bully Hill, which he and his father had bought back some years before with the intention of converting the native grapes over into vineyards of French-American hybrids. One day, when his father was away on vacation, the winery’s Board of Directors gathered and voted to remove Walter from the business. Walter publicly spoke out about the misleading practices of several New York Wineries (without naming names). Even if the laws at that time allowed for the addition of up to 53% sugar and/or water without any indication of such on the wine labels. Walter would also not tolerate the watering down of Taylor Wines (literal watering down, that is). Even if the laws allowed wineries to add up to 25% foreign wine and continue to maintain the New York State appellation. He demanded that New York wines continue to be made with 100% New York grapes, even it was cheaper to bring in grapes from elsewhere. Walter’s expectations seem quite reasonable. Walter found his way to the family business at Taylor Wine Company becoming an Executive Vice President, but he came to realize that controlling the quality of the wine and “preserving the honest family philosophy upon which the winery was founded” was becoming harder and harder, in part due to the winery’s size, but also due to the laws at that time. He graduated from New York State University at Alfred with degrees in Accounting and Animal Husbandry and ended his formal education completing the Harvard University Program for Management Development. After graduating from Staunton Military Academy in Virginia, he attend Colgate University, University of Miami’s Art School, and the Embry Riddle Aviation School. You could say Walter’s interests were diverse. The very same plot of land Bully Hill stands on today.Īfter surviving prohibition, the Taylor Wine Company grew and grew and grew (they became so large they had to build a sprawling complex of building in Pleasant Valley) until they were the largest producer of still wines on the East Coast and the largest producer of Champagne in the entire country. For the story of Bull Hill begins before that, back in 1878 when Walter’s grandfather started the Taylor Wine Company in the small town of Hammondsport, on a steep hill overlooking Keuka Lake.
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It’s little wonder the winery he would eventually found would become one of the most eclectic in the Finger Lakes.īut we get ahead of ourselves. He was intelligent, creative, artistic, witty, passionate, and stubborn, among other things. Taylor was not the sort of person to take the road most traveled. Well, that, and by being very, very clever!īorn in 1931, Walter S. And sometimes the best way to stand up to a Giant is by using its own size against it. You see, Walter Taylor came to realize that sometimes our biggest obstacles turn into our greatest opportunities. There’s an art to turning sour grapes into one of the largest and most successful wineries in the Finger Lakes. Long before branding became trendy, before Giant conglomerates (or lone individuals) carefully crafted an identity through a distinct brand that set their products, services, and philosophy apart, and long before the Internet allowed an ordinary person’s actions to “go viral” and catapult him or her (or the entity they represented) into popular favor, Walter Taylor masterfully demonstrated how even small, independent companies in the middle of nowhere could not just survive attempts by industry Giants to stomp them out, but could turn those attempts into the foundation upon which a business could thrive. Or you could choose to not merely face adversity, but embrace it in such a creative and, perhaps, irreverent way that it becomes part of the very fiber of your business and, in the process, garners you a certain “cult status.” You could thumb your nose at the powers that be. You could sulk, or grumble, or stomp around and make a scene. What would you do, if you rebounded from that setback by starting your own business, your own winery, and were then told you couldn’t use your own name on the product you created? Silenced, more or less, for speaking out against industry-wide practices that threatened to reduce the quality of your product and mislead consumers. Fired you for standing up for the values upon which the business was founded. What would you do if, while your father was off on vacation, the board of directors of your family’s business (of which you were fourth-generation) voted to give you the boot? That’s right. Heritage Village of the Southern Finger Lakes ::Īn Irreverent Genius: The Story of Bully Hill.