Sherry-Lehmann’s Customers Finally Receiving Long-Lost Wine
After more than two years, Sherry-Lehmann’s long-suffering customers are finally starting to get their wine back.
The iconic Park Avenue vintner – which shut its doors for good in March 2023 as it failed to renew its liquor license after 89 years in business – famously went silent as hundreds of customers of Wine Caves, its decades-old storage service, clamored in vain for their prize vintages.
Customers Reclaiming Their Treasures
Now, after a flurry of headlines, a pair of FBI raids and a drawn-out courtroom battle between Sherry-Lehmann’s owners and its landlord, the expensive booze is beginning to trickle out again – and it’s sweet.
“I’ll share one of these bottles with my father, who is 101,” said one Boston-based collector who just secured his stash valued at $80,000 – including a case of 1982 Petrus and another of assorted prize Bordeaux including Chateau Mouton Rothschild.
“These were the first serious bottles I bought and I bought them in the 80s,” the collector told The Post, asking not to be identified. “My father gave me a book by Robert Parker, the most influential wine critic in the world. I saw these two wines had been given 100-point scores by Parker. It was an impulse buy.”
Recovery Process Underway
During the past several weeks, dozens of other Wine Caves customers have begun to collect their long-lost vintages from the basement of a nondescript office building in Rockland County – the latest bizarre twist in a process that is now being supervised by Sherry-Lehmann’s former landlord.
Hong Kong-based real estate firm Glorious Sun remains Sherry-Lehmann’s biggest creditor – still owed $5 million in back rent on the corner retail space it occupied at the foot of its glass-and-steel office tower at 505 Park Ave. When the store closed, Wine Caves became unreachable.
Sherry-Lehmann transferred the prize vintages – some 32,000 bottles worth $16 million, according to court documents – in 2022 to Blue Hill Plaza, a corporate park in Pearl River, NY – where most of them have remained to this day, stacked in an air-conditioned basement alongside stacks of computer servers.
Legal Battles and Resolutions
According to court filings, Wine Caves new majority owner is James Galtieri, a former Sherry-Lehmann supplier who for 20 years was the exclusive US importer for Château Lafite Rothschild – among the most coveted wines in the world with new bottles fetching upwards of $700 each.
“Wine Caves will soon have all the information it needs regarding its clients’ wines so that it may finally help them get their wine back and move forward with its business,” Balestriere added.
Conclusion
For some Sherry-Lehmann customers, at least, that ordeal is over – among them the Boston-based oenophile who – now 68 – was in his 30s when he scooped up his precious Petrus and Mouton Rothschild.
While his recovered stash is worth a fortune, it’s not quite what he thought it would be, noting that the labels weren’t pristine and the crates had been opened when he received them. He guessed there was “sweating” from temperature changes, although the fill levels were just right.
“I feel lucky it wasn’t stolen,” he told The Post on Friday. “I will probably have it over Christmas with a roast with loved ones and family.”
