WHY WE TASTE

Of course, a great number of wines are highly rated from respected wine periodicals such as: Robert Parker's, The Wine Advocate, The Wine Spectator and Steve Tanzer's, The International Wine Cellar. We receive multi-copies of each monthly and they are devoured by us and our staff. But we also find numerous wines that have never been reviewed, or that we feel deserve higher ratings, and we taste, evaluate, and purchase them with confidence, so that you can have confidence when you drink them. For 59 years our motto has been Taste You Can Trust!

--The Morrell Family

Morrell & Company: The Beginning

In a very real sense the history of Morrell & Company began in the early 1920’s when Samuel and Joseph, two of the four sons of Benjamin Morrell, entered the American wine trade as eastern sales representatives for an old fashioned Virginia winery. Unfortunately, disaster soon struck in the form of National Prohibition! From 1922 to 1933, all beverage alcohol including wine became illegal with one exception: wines used either for sacramental or for medicinal purposes! The brothers remained active throughout Prohibition as vintners to New York City’s churches, synagogues, and physicians, the last of which prescribed “a wine tonic” known as Virginia Dare which was made from the “foxy” scuppernong grape, grown extensively in Virginia since colonial days.In 1947, the brothers parted, and Sam opened a small wine store on East 49th Street. From these humble beginnings, over the next fifty years, three generations of Morrells would come to their careers as merchant vintners to Gotham City wine lovers.

Throughout our fifty years in wine, we remember our many firsts: in the late fifties and early sixties, Charlotte Morrell led our way to the fine wine trade with her many tasting trips to the vineyards of Europe with early founding members of Friends of the Sommelier Society of New York. In the sixties, Peter Morrell began the first consumer oriented school for wine - The Academy of Wine, and, together, Peter and his mother launched the first New York Chapter of Les Amis Du Vin.

In 1970, Peter became the first American vintner to identify the value of pre-phylloxera Bordeaux when he purchased a Double Magnum of 1865 Lafite Rothschild in London (from the famous Glamis Castle cellar) for the then world record price of only $520 (only about $130 per bottle)!! In 1972, Morrell & Company opened the first major new wine store in New York in over three decades known as our Wine Emporium - with over 5,000 square feet on East 53rd Street devoted to wine. In 1975, Morrell & Company christened the first California Wine Vault - a temperature controlled time capsule to monitor the aging potential of America’s finest California wines. In the mid 1970’s, Morrell & Company became the first New York wine merchant to publish catalogues with our own extensive tasting notes. In 1980, Morrell & Company started The New York City Chapter of The Brotherhood of the Knights of the Vine and soon thereafter we were among the first American wine merchants to invite the proprietors of top Bordeaux chateaux to come to New York to taste their wines with New York area wine lovers. In the ‘90s, we’ve launched our first Annual International Wine Fair, our “Celebrity Saturday” in-store wine tastings and, finally, this special format catalogue The 100 Best Wines of the Year. Our President Roberta Morrell took American wines to Russia, and, once again, Morrell & Company was first to take up the gavel and hold the first open to the public Fine Wine Auction in New York on April 29, 1994.

In our eyes, Peter Morrell has always been somewhat of a visionary, always ahead of his time, his on-going love for discovering new wines and new wine regions has sent him around the world in search of fine wine.

From camping out in trailers in the Napa Valley in the 1970’s when vintners were first planting vineyards, to month long stays in Bordeaux and Burgundy in the early 1960s before French wines were fashionable here and trips to Australia and Argentina in the early 80s, Peter Morrell has always seen the potential in these wine growing regions. Wine, above all represents pleasure. .one of the really “good things in life”, but is also a form of creative expression. Consumer education has always been the Morrell trademark and from the wine-maker to the consumer, Peter Morrell is the liaison. Above all, this is the role that he enjoys most. His wonderful wine discoveries and remarkable palate keep him constantly “in the eye of the wine world”, thus paving the way for future generations. If only one could inherit his palate! Today, we welcome all of our new Internet customers, and personally invite each of you to visit us at our Rockefeller Center store and The Morrell Wine Bar & Cafe when next you are in New York. Our company’s motto is Taste You Can Trust so, order with confidence by reading Peter Morrell’s personal tasting notes.