Bully Hill uses sports to sell wine

Wines & Vines, June, 2006 by Thomas Pellechia

It has been nearly three decades since Coca-Cola bought Taylor Wine Company in New York's Finger Lakes and sued Walter Taylor, its founder's grandson, to prevent him from using his own name on his Bully Hill Vineyards wine.

Neither giant Coke nor tiny Bully Hill expected the outcome of the suit: In a classic example of winning the battle but losing the war, Coke won, but later sold Taylor Wine Company. Bully Hill Vineyards lost, but is today the most widely distributed family-owned small winery based in the Finger Lakes.

In 1967, Walter Taylor's winery had produced only 200 cases of wine from local grapes grown on a family-owned piece of hillside overlooking pristine and historic Keuka Lake, birthplace of the Finger Lakes wine industry. In the beginning, and for a few years thereafter, the winery sold just about all its wine locally. Steady and dynamic growth brought Bully Hill Vineyards to its 125,000 case production in 2005, of which 86% is sold through the distribution network in 32 states.

Perhaps more astonishing than its rapid growth is the fact that Bully Hill made its leap across the nation with wines produced mainly from French-American hybrid and so-called native Northeastern grape varieties. That kind of success isn't the outcome of winning a lawsuit or of just good luck; it is the result of recognizing an opportunity and seizing it.

Instead of begging distributors to allot the small winery shelf space, early on Walter Taylor decided on "pull" rather than "push" promotion. It was a relatively easy decision for Taylor, since for more than a century the Finger Lakes region has been an exceptional tourist lure. With the tourists on his turf, Taylor told the David and Goliath story that lost him the use of his name.

His tag promotion line was, "They got my name, but they didn't get my goat." An accomplished artist, Taylor backed up the promotion with a "Love My Goat" line of wines with a goat head label. When they got back home, the tourists asked for Bully Hill Wines.

Taylor also racked up thousands of miles across the regional upstate New York market, and then beyond. But a serious car accident put a stop to all that in the late 1990s. Walter Taylor died a quadriplegic in 2000. Some thought it was going to be difficult for Bully Hill Vineyards to sustain the success that was so closely tied to that one powerful personality. But those people obviously didn't know Walter's wife, Lillian.

One of Lillian Taylor's first maneuvers at the reins was to round out the creative and irreverent Bully Hill labels with a few of her own. (Her husband's designs are dense and often allegorical; her labels are bright and natural, with flowing lines and flowers and a decidedly feminine touch.) She also upgraded the visitor center and retail shops from their rustic, barn-like ambiance to large, comfortable modern spaces. And for a final touch, she established what is today a well-respected--and always full--regional restaurant on the winery grounds, for which she is master chef.

The changes that she put into place certainly paid off in pull promotion: Visitors to the winery keep adding up and they come from the world over. But the one Lillian Taylor activity that arguably did the most to help the winery was her attendance at the Watkins Glen Racetrack for the NASCAR Busch North Circuit.

An avid lover of NASCAR, she made a decision one day at the races to bring wine to beer drinkers. She sponsored Eric Bodine, a driver from a local NASCAR driving family. For the first time, a local family winery logo circled the track, increasing demand for Bully Hill wine. Soon, Bully Hill Vineyards produced 37 brands.

The happy arrangement with NASCAR lasted about half a dozen years. At about the time that the concept of winery promotion through racing began to spread to the West Coast by way of NASCAR team owner Randy Lynch's Bennett Lane Winery, Bully Hill's sponsorship neared the finish line.

According to Adam LaPierre, the winery's sales director, "In the long run, our years with NASCAR were quite good for Bully Hill. Over time, however, we recognized that the promotion pays off best when your car wins. What's worse, a lot can and does go wrong with a car. You don't just lose, but are often out of the race because of mechanical problems. When the car with your logo on it is idle, your promotion money is equally idle, which of course reduces the per-dollar promotion value."

Bully Hill's driver promotion with Bodine ended in 2003. Two years later, the last winery-sponsored car competed on the Busch North Circuit. In the meantime, Lillian Taylor got her next promotion idea from her love of football. The natural place to start was at Ralph Wilson Stadium, 75,000-seat home of the NFL Buffalo Bills, and a two-hour drive from Bully Hill Vineyards. That year, the winery began tagging the slogan "Official Wine of the Buffalo Bills" onto its in-store and on-premise promotion programs.

The difference between sponsoring a NASCAR driver and sponsoring an NFL team is in the number of eyes. The races offered Bully Hill regional promotion; the Buffalo Bills opened the winery to the United States. When the Bills play, not counting the people at the stadium, 440,000 eyes see the Bully Hill logo, and it helps that the logo joins Budweiser, Heineken, Labatt and Gallo, lending national credibility to a regional producer.