How a man from Naples Island taught us all about wine

PHOTO by ROSHEILA ROBLES

Morry’s of Naples sells fine liquors, exotic cheeses and badger-bristled men’s shaving brushes—but it’s famous because three generations of the Rabin family have done one thing very well: sell wine. Seventy years ago, that was revolutionary.

When the store opened in 1938—later, the longtime home of Grandma’s Sugarplums—cocktails were the fashion. No one really knew from wine.

Neither did Calgary-born Morry Rabin (unofficially Long Beach’s first sommelier). Not at first. He just had a bit of a sixth sense, and he let it be his guide.

“He grew to it. His family was very poor. He didn’t grow up with that palate,” says his granddaughter, Annie Rabin. Today, thanks to Morry’s self-acquired taste and vision—and the relationships he began forging with vintners a half-century ago—the store stocks wine from across the world.

Much is different from the days when Second Street didn’t connect to Pacific Coast Highway, and little Annie Rabin, who grew up in the store, would ride its massive rubber conveyor belt down from the second floor with best friend Leanna Rodgers.

Annie Rabin is now the managing buyer. (She swears they only use the conveyor belt for moving product.) Rodgers is their public relations director. And Annie Rabin’s brother Ken is the owner—having started out bagging ice in the ’70s, before the store stocked bagged ice.

“Listening to KRLA [AM 870], the songs of the ’50s and ’60s,” he remembers, and out in the store, Stevie Wonder’s “Uptight” comes on the radio. The station isn’t KRLA—it just sounds like it. Morry’s has changed too; every generation of Rabins leaves its mark with wine.

“In the ’70s, my mother and father [Cherie and Harvey] were instrumental in organizing wine tours to Napa Valley,” Annie Rabin says. “Around the ’80s was when she built the small wine bar.” A small wine bar was big news then.

Today, almost everyone knows a little about wine—and Pinot Noir, thanks to Sideways—and we want more. So three years ago, the third generation of Rabins converted the room where we’re sitting—which was first a parking lot, then a storeroom—into the Backroom: a massive wine taste-ery with overstuffed sofas and a swanky bar. Wine tastings, beer tastings—it all happens here.

It’s also where, March 9, Morry’s will host its first-ever V-Day event—joining the movement protesting violence against women.

“We’re having six different performers doing six different monologues from The Vagina Monologues,” Rodgers says. That’s Eve Ensler’s play, read by a cast including local writers Donna Hilbert and Myriam Joseph (recently voted one of Long Beach’s sexiest people by District readers).

The night will also feature appetizers and desserts (fine food plays off nicely against fine wine) and a screening of the documentary Until the Violence Stops, which examines how Ensler’s play grew into V-Day. The Long Beach Women’s Shelter and the V-Day organization will divide the proceeds.

And on March 10, after shutting its doors for a few hours, Morry’s will open them again. The songs of the ’50s and ’60s will serenade shoppers seeking the perfect accompaniment to an Australian lamb chop or a slab of Chilean sea bass. And the Rabins will carry on the tradition their store’s founder started so long ago.

“I want to be able to sell a $10 bottle of wine that tastes like a $20 bottle, and a $20 bottle of wine that tastes like a $40 bottle,” Ken Rabin says. Morry’s grandchildren know he would like that. They always think of him whenever they consider trying something new.

“Whenever something happens today,” Ken Rabin says, “we take a step back and say, ‘What would Morry do?’”

Morry would like that too.

MORRY’S OF NAPLES 5764 E SECOND ST | LONG BEACH 90803 | 562.433.0405 | MORRYS.COM | THREE-DAY STOREWIDE ANNIVERSARY SALE | MARCH 1-3 | V-DAY | MARCH 9 4:30PM | $45

Tags: Commerce, Long Beach, morry's of naples, vagina monologues, wine, wine bar