Flanagan Hunt Mortuary Records

Author : Thomas Pellechia
Publisher : State University of New York Press
ISBN 13 : 1438455518
Total Pages : 272 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (384 download)

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Download or read book Over a Barrel written by Thomas Pellechia and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2015-02-11 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Finalist for the 2015 ForeWord INDIEFAB Book of the Year Award in the Regional Category In 1880, Walter Stephen Taylor, a cooper's son, started a commercial grape juice company in New York's Finger Lakes region. Two years later, wine production was added, and by the 1920s, the Taylor Wine Company was firmly established. Walter Taylor's three sons carefully guided the company through Prohibition and beyond, making it the most important winery in the Northeast and profoundly affecting the people and community of Hammondsport, where the company was headquartered. In the 1960s, the Taylor family took the company public. Ranked sixth in domestic wine production and ripe for corporate takeover, the company was sold to Coca-Cola in 1977. Three more changes of corporate ownership followed until, in 1995, this once-dynamic and important wine producer was obliterated, tearing apart the local economy and changing a way of life that had lasted for nearly a century. Drawing on archival research as well as interviews with many of the principal players, Thomas Pellechia skillfully traces the economic dynamism of the Finger Lakes wine region, the passion and ingenuity of the Taylor family, and the shortsighted corporate takeover scenario that took down a once-proud American family company. In addition to providing important lessons for business innovators, Over a Barrel is a cautionary tale for a wine region that is repeating its formative history.