Bully Hill Vineyards

Bully Hill’s fate was set into motion almost 100 years before its inception when founder Walter S. Taylor’s grandfather started the Taylor Wine Company—a company that quickly became an industry leader and great economic engine for the community. Walter joined the family company in the sixties and quickly realized that as the company grew it was becoming harder to preserve the honest family philosophy on which the winery was founded. To preserve that philosophy Walter stood up to the New York Wine Industry and the deceptive practices that it could follow under the protection of NY law. Wineries could add additions of water, cheep wine from other counties, and chemicals without informing the consumer as long as their bottle of wine contained 53% NY grape juice. The board of directors at Taylor Wine, who were taking advantage of this protection, fired Walter for speaking out against these practices. No longer able to preserve the honesty and integrity of the Taylor winemaking philosophy at Taylor Wine, Walter established Bully Hill to honor that philosophy. He broke the mold of the NY industry and made his wines simply out of 100% NY juice and with honesty and integrity in the winemaking process. In 1977, everything changed when Coca Cola acquired majority ownership and control of the Taylor Wine Company. Without warning, Coca Cola sued Walter to forever eliminate his ability to use his last name “Taylor” and to prevent him from telling people that he and Bully Hill had anything to do at all with the Taylor family of winemakers. Committed to still telling his story Walter replaced the Taylor name on his labels and promotional materials with a black mark to show the world that even if Coca Cola could cover up his name, under that cover, he was always going to be a Taylor.