Finger Lakes Wine Museum, also known as the Greyton H. Taylor Wine Museum, was founded in 1967 in Hammondsport, New York. It has a collection of unique artifacts that trace the New York State wine industry's birth in the Finger Lakes. The museum is also home to the Walter S. Taylor Art Gallery.
History
Walter S. Taylor, grandson of Walter Taylor, the founder of Taylor Wine Company, started the museum after visiting similar museums while traveling through Europe. In an effort to document and educate the public on the history of the wine industry in the Finger Lakes region, Walter collected wine presses, pumps, coopers' tools, wine bottles, glasses and other relics from barns, attics, junkyards and antique shops and put them on display in the museum. The museum received a provisional charter from the New York State Education Department.
Collection The collection contains notable glassware in the Presidential Glassware Collection, including Abraham Lincoln: wine glasses made by C. Dorflinger of Brooklyn, NY, 1861; Benjamin Harrison "Russian Cut" sherry glass and "Roman Cut" sherry glass, Made by C. Dorflinger & Sons of White Mills, Pennsylvania, c 1890 and 1891; Franklin D. Roosevelt: champagne glass made by T.G. Hawkes & Company of Corning, NY, 1937; John F. Kennedy: glassware made by Morgantown Glass Guild, Morgantown, West Virginia, 1961.From the Finger Lakes Museum collection.
Also on display is a hand-hammered copper brandy pot still, once owned by the Germania Wine & Brandy Co., 1870-1918, that had to close its doors with the coming of Prohibition and failed to re-establish itself after repeal. The museum has an exhibit of lab equipment used in wine making from the 19th and 20th centuries.
References