Sherry-Lehmann’s wine storage customers are panicking after learning that their valuable vintages may have been kept in a suburban office building instead of a temperature-controlled warehouse, The Post has learned.
One anxious oenophile kept two cases of 1982 Petrus Bordeaux — which he bought four decades ago from the retailer and believes are now valued at around $90,000 — at the Wine Caves storage facility in Pearl River, NY, which was raided by the feds last month.
“I want to know what they found in Pearl River and whether someone was paying the electric bill,” the Wine Caves customer told The Post.
“I’m reassured that law enforcement has descended on this property,” the customer, who did not want to be identified, added, “but based on what I read about these guys, I’m assuming that my wine has been stolen.”
He’s not the only wine lover concerned about their pricey bottles being damaged if not stored at the proper temperature of 55 degrees.
The iconic Park Avenue wine store’s customers have been clamoring for information and demanding to retrieve their collections valued in the millions of dollars from Sherry Lehmann owners Shyda Gilmer and Kris Green — whose own lawyers have not been able to contact the deadbeat retailers, as The Post exclusively reported.
The feds on July 18 raided the shuttered Park Avenue store and the office building in Pearl River — where insiders say Sherry-Lehmann’s owners moved their Wine Caves storage business — amid accusations the company has been reselling wines owned by customers to other buyers.
“I had assumed that my wine was being stored beautifully, never moved and kept at the right temperature,” the customer said. “If these guys were looking for the best stuff to steal, they would have stolen my wine.”
Just weeks before the raids, Sherry-Lehmann was trying to mollify its top clients, many of whom were only recently aware of its financial problems from recent news reports.
The owner of the Petrus Bordeaux spoke with a Sherry-Lehmann rep as recently as June 2 and was told that his wine would be delivered to his home within three weeks, the customer told The Post.
The rep, Anna Ng, called him from a blocked number, explaining that she was working remotely and would arrange for his wine to be delivered, according to the customer. He never heard from her again, he told The Post.
Ng, who had worked as a customer service rep for the store during the busy holiday season, did not respond to emails from The Post.
Within a few weeks all working telephone numbers associated with the business and its web site were taken down.
His wine never arrived, but the customer received a storage bill from Wine Caves on June 26, asking him to wire his payment to a Chase bank account.
The bill, which was viewed by The Post, was for two months of storage costing $33.74.
It was the first time the customer had been asked to wire his payment instead of sending a check, he said.
He is is not alone in his fear that his property may have been illegally sold to other customers.
As reports of Sherry-Lehmann’s financial struggles became known in December, other Wine Caves customers tried and failed to get their wine back, sources tell The Post.
By one estimate, Wine Caves held some 2,000 cases of pricey vintages.
The widow of a Manhattan physician who owned a case of rare 1995 Domaine de la Romanée-Conti La Tâche that was kept at Wine Caves recently learned that a North Carolina real estate developer may have unwittingly bought her husband’s wine from Gilmer, according to a Wine Spectator report.
The North Carolina collector bought a case of the same rare wine in March for $95,940, according to the publication which obtained a copy of the invoice.
The real estate developer told Wine Spectator he wasn’t “aware of the extent of [Sherry Lehmann’s’ troubles at the time but was aware they had been in the news and assumed they were reaching out to me with inventoried wine they were willing to release to raise money.”
Sherry Lehmann did not return calls seeking comment.
There have been no criminal charges filed against Gilmer and Green.
The company owes New York $2.7 million in unpaid sales taxes and reportedly owes its Park Avenue landlord $3.6 million in back rent, according to a Wine Spectator report.
Wine collectors and vendors alike have sued the retailer for non-payment or non-delivery of wine they purchased.
However, lawyers for Sherry Lehmann’s long-time law firm Nixon Peabody have asked a judge overseeing a $1 million lawsuit to be allowed to withdraw because the firm’s legal fees “are long overdue” and the retailer has “failed to make good on assurances it has made repeatedly that it will pay these outstanding invoices,” according to court documents.
Daniel Hurteau, a partner at the firm, also wrote his law firm has been unable to “consistently communicate” with Sherry-Lehmann.”
Gilmer and Green moved Wine Caves from a warehouse in Queens to Pearl River last year, as The Post reported.
Wine Caves was evicted from the Jamaica Queens facility for not paying its rent, former Sherry-Lehmann employees told the Post. But it’s alcohol storage license from the SLA is tied to the Queens facility – and expires at the end of this year – not to Pearl River, according to the license which The Post obtained. The agency is also investigating Sherry-Lehmann, spokesman, William Crawley said.
Law enforcement agencies, including the US Postal Inspection Service, spent two days at the Pearl River facility, removing items from the building, which is owned by Sherry-Lehmann’s landlord on Park Avenue, Hong Kong based Glorious Sun.
The FBI did not respond for comment and a spokesperson for the USPIS declined to provide a statement. Gilmer and Green could not be reached for comment.
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