Among other things, Taylor Wine attorneys pointed out that some of the statements on Walter's labels were incorrect. The home of the original Taylor family wines, they said, was the Taylor Wine Co. and not Bully Hill Vineyards, which had been founded only recently. Moreover, they said that although Walter Taylor had once owned the 70-acre site on Bully Hill now occupied by his grandson's vineyard, the first piece of land Walter's grandfather ever acquired for a vineyard was a 7-acre parcel purchased several years earlier. And that acreage was still owned by the Taylor Wine Co.
Judge Harold P. Burke agreed with Taylor Wine's complaints and on August 10, 1977, issue a preliminary injunction. His instructions were severe. Bully Hill was enjoined from "using the word Taylor or any colorable imitation thereof in connection with any labeling, packaging materials, advertising, or promotional material for any of defendant's products."
If Walter's campaign against tank-car wines was potent, his new cause was many times more powerful. On the face of it, the case was extraordinary. Taylor Wine had merged with Coca-Cola seven months earlier, so this court battle was obviously a David-and-Goliath tussle. Here was a tiny vineyard being victimized by a giant, worldwide corporation whose sales numbered in the billions. You can put junk in wine, but steal a man's name? The press went nuts and fanned a running brushfire of features and editorials from coast to coast.
"I've always been amazed," Doyle says, "that with all the attention this story got in the press, hardly anyone came to interview us. It's as if we were wrong simply because we were big. I can tell you we didn't even get the approval of the Coca-Cola Co. to go ahead with this. We would've done the same thing, merger or not. Frankly, most of the people at Coca-Cola don't have any position at all on Walter. They don't even know who he is."
Unfortunately, Doyle was right. Most people could've cared less what Taylor Wine or Coca-Cola had to say. The company had been completely upstaged by the irrepressible Walter, folk hero in the making. Even while his appeal of the preliminary injunction was being considered by the court, Walter was busy orchestrating a series of defensive flourishes that he claimed followed Judge Burke's ruling.
Walter blotted out his last name wherever it appeared. He painted over or covered with gray tape the name Taylor on every sign at the winery. He even scratched it out on a road sign identifying Greyton H. Taylor Memorial Drive, which runs up Bully Hill in front of the winery. He stood by the counter in the winery's retail store and asked every customer to help him in his cause and gave them black felt-tip markers so they could obliterate his name from the wine bottle label. "We went through thousands of bottles like that," Walter recalls. "It was an incredible scene."
Then he drew Lone Ranger masks onto the portraits of his ancestors that also appeared on his labels. The mask idea intrigued him, and he frequently wore one himself as he greeted vineyard visitors. He took to calling himself Walter S. or Walter S. Blank, and even toyed with the idea of changing his name permanently to Walter St. Bully. He said he was "unknown, but not unloved." There were Polaroid snapshots of himself on the walls of the retail store and Walter's handwritten question underneath asking, "Who is this man?"
When Taylor Wine attorneys objected to the masked ancestors, Walter drew "Mr. Cyclops," a one-eyed man wearing a coat and tie in an otherwise formal pose. And, if that wasn't enough, he put fanciful animals on his labels: Raccoons doffing their hates, a bulldog in a bow-tie at the wheel of a car with the inscription "Stiff upper lip, Walter S.," and horses, and baboons.
Some people thought he had finally flipped, that poor Walter was rowing through life with only one oar. Many others called him a marketing genius. During the court battle, sales at Bully Hill Vineyards climbed from $650,000 in 1977 to more than $2 million in 1980. The number of visitors to his vineyard store increased more than 25%.
One thing is certain: Walter understood human nature. "The more you try to hide something," Walter says, "the more people want to learn the truth." What was under those black marks, people were wondering, and why is it hidden? The Bully Hill Vineyard became a celebrated stop along the tourist trail weaving through the Finger Lake wineries. Everybody thought Walter was a riot; everybody that is, except Taylor Wine Co. and the judge.
The Court of Appeals decided that although an injunction was necessary, the provisions of Judge Burke's ruling were "too broad." The court said Walter could use his signature "on a Bully Hill label or advertisement if he chooses, but only with appropriate disclaimer that he is not connected with, or a successor to, the Taylor Wine Co."
But Walter's antics in the meantime convinced Taylor attorneys that one way or another, Walter intended to violate the spirit of the injunction itself. They urged Judge Burke to make the injunction permanent and to find Walter in contempt. On October 5, 1979, Judge Burke did just that. Bully Hill's actions, the judge wrote, "are all part of a purposefully integrated marketing scheme designed to appropriate the goodwill associated with the Taylor trademark. The labels, promotional materials, advertising, and packaging materials violate nearly every provision of the preliminary injunction."
Judge Burke then ordered Bully Hill to adhere to a list of 11 stipulations detailing what Walter could say, and how and when he could use his name. For example, the judge said that the lettering and size of Walter's signature could be "no larger than one-fourth the size of the lettering of the Bully Hill Vineyards Inc. trademark on the same label, advertisement, side, surface, or page." He also ordered that within 30 days of his decision, Bully Hill had to deliver to Taylor Wine all prohibited labeling and advertising "for destruction."
