Some 20,000 bottles of rare wine worth millions of dollars remain unclaimed more than three years after the implosion of New York City wine store Sherry-Lehmann, The Post has learned.
Cratefuls of rare vintages are sitting in the basement floor of a tower at Blue Hill Plaza, a nondescript office development in Rockland County, after the FBI raided the space as part of an ongoing fraud investigation, according to a lawyer representing the landlord.
The landlord, Hong Kong-based Glorious Sun, took charge of the $16 million collection after Sherry-Lehmann’s storage business defaulted on its rent at Blue Hill Plaza. Now, it is scrambling to return the wines to their original owners in order to rent the space to a paying tenant, the attorney said.
Glorious Sun even placed an ad in Wine Specator this summer.
“Attention” the ad states in bright red all caps lettering. “We may have your wine. If you stored wine with Sherry-Lehmann (or Wine Caves) please contact Blue Hill Plaza.”
Still, only one third of the stash, or 10,135 bottles, have been returned to their rightful owners. Sources said some clients may have either passed away or forgotten about their purchases or are otherwise unaware that Sherry-Lehmann and its storage business are now defunct.
The remaining wine has not been claimed because of “ignorance, wealth or relocations,” said one source who had worked for Sherry-Lehmann.
“The people who really wanted their wine back have been taken care of,” said Edmund O’Brien of law firm Kucker Marino Winiarsky & Bittens, which represents Glorious Sun. “Now it’s time to find the people who haven’t been paying attention.”
The iconic Park Avenue vintner shut its doors for good in March 2023 as it failed to renew its liquor license and pay its rent after 89 years in business. Initially, many customers had clamored in vain to get their property out of the Wine Caves facility after reading about the retailer’s woes.
Federal agencies including the FBI and US Postal Inspectors swooped in after a 2023 New York Times report alleged that Sherry-Lehmann was selling some of the wine belonging to the company’s storage customers to collectors.
Sherry-Lehman denied the allegation and last year sued Pulitzer-Prize winning reporter, James Stewart for allegedly orchestrating a smear campaign against the company and its owners, Shyda Gilmer and Kris Green. A federal judge dismissed the case on Tuesday.
Sherry-Lehmann’s 2025 complaint claimed that despite “as many as 200 [law enforcement] agents at the Blue Hill facility for five days…and as the US Attorney’s Office made a multi-day exhaustive search for information to substantiate” the New York Times article, “there have been no arrests nor any indictments as a result of these raids.”
Over the summer, however, O’Brien said he received a call from the FBI agent with whom he had spoken with previously and was part of a three-way conversation introducing him to a new investigator on the case, he told The Post.
“I asked this person if the case was dead,” O’Brien said, adding that the answer was “No.”
The investigators, he said, wanted an update on the Blue Hill Plaza situation and on a lawsuit Wine Caves filed against Glorious Sun last year accusing the landlord of withholding wine that belonged to Wine Caves.
The FBI did not immediately respond to a query requesting comment.
According to the Wine Caves complaint, filed in state court in Rockland County, 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.
Galtieri was brought in by Shyda Gilmer, Sherry-Lehmann’s former CEO who landed in a legal firestorm over the wine shop’s closure and scandals.
It’s not clear whether Galtieri is still an owner in Wine Caves. He did not respond to calls and an email.
The lawyer representing Wine Caves, John Balestriere, asked the court in August to be released as legal counsel to the company, saying his legal fees were unpaid. The court approved Balestriere’s request.
John JD McFerrin-Clancy, a lawyer who is now representing Wine Caves in the litigation, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
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