The 1860 state gazetteer makes only the briefest mention of grapes on Keuka Lake, but the 1868 county directory shows 110 vineyards in the town of Urbana alone!
*In addition, of course, are coopers, basketmakers, and a whole panoply of support services. An Ohio wine industry had started about a decade earlier, importing European winemakers to take the lead. Blight wrecked the Ohio vineyards just as the Keuka vineyards were getting started, making those winemakers suddenly available… and helping to explain the European feel of the oldest buildings.
*In the late 1850s George and Maria Taylor removed from Connecticut to the Owego area. There their son Walter was born in 1858.
8The Taylors were engaged in coopering, or the making of casks. Young Walter learned this trade, and in 1879, at the age of 21, married Addie Chapman.
*At the time of the marriage the elder Chapmans had just sold their businesses in Tioga County and started fresh in Hammondsport, which was starting to boom from the combined forces of the grapes, the wine, the new railroad connection, and the tourist trade. Besides grocering, the Chapmans bought a vineyard on Bully Hill.
*Alerted by his father-in-law, Walter and Addie took a lease with option to buy on seven nearby acres. They built a cabin and worked the vineyard, doing very well with their first year’s harvest, which they hauled to Grimley’s packing plant in Hammondsport, then returned to Tioga County and the coopering business for the winter.
*Another nearby vineyard came up for sale, 60 acres with a house and barn, and having done so well the first year, they took a chance in 1880. They moved into the new place, experimented with blending their juices, and packed the product in the family casks. Walter took a downstate sales trip by rail, and soon had an impressive collection of orders.
*In 1881 and ‘82 they expanded the facilities, with Walter’s father supervising construction of half a dozen thousand-gallon casks, made from their own white oak. That year Walter received his license to make wine.
*By the late 1880s they had expanded their line to include still wines, dessert wines, and grape juice. Their family was expanding too, with four children born between 1883 and 1893. Greyton was born a decade later, making him twenty years younger than his elder sister.
*In 1919, as World War I was ending and Prohibition beginning, Walter bought the Columbia Winery (where Finger Lakes Boating Musuem is now); he would sell the Bully Hill homestead ten years later. Since so much of his business was in grape juice and sacramental wines, he was somewhat insulated from Prohibition.
*The original Walter Taylor died in 1934, and the firm continued as a private family company. Son Fred was one of five new owners who revived the Bath and Hammondsport Railroad after the 1935 flood.
*In 1936 they began the manufacture of champagne, and in 1940 dropped non-alcoholic products. They experienced a boom during World War II, as competition from Europe ceased. In 1958 Walter S. Taylor bought back the original homestead and began hybridization experiments in conjunction with his father Greyton… today’s Bully Hill Winery.
*A stock offering in 1961 raised capital so that Taylor Wine Company could buy the Pleasant Valley Wine Company, with Greyton as manager. By 1971 Fred, Greyton, and Clarence… the sons of Walter and Addie… had each passed away.
*Eventually the family sold out to corporate ownership, and for a time Taylor was the largest employer in Steuben County, after the Corning Glass Works. But a succession of corporate owners neglected and finally closed the operation, ending a century-old Keuka Lake heritage.