By: Jerome Brookshire

(JEWISH VOICE NEWS) For the long-suffering patrons of Sherry-Lehmann, the storied Park Avenue wine institution that shuttered in March 2023 after nearly nine decades in operation, the unimaginable has finally begun: the return of their long-lost, long-held, and long-feared-vanished vintage treasures. After more than two years of silence, confusion, legal conflict, and national headlines chronicled by The New York Post, customers who entrusted their rarest wines to the retailer’s Wine Caves storage service are at last recovering their prized bottles — the remnants of a saga that has become one of the most bizarre and troubling episodes in America’s luxury retail landscape.

The revival of customer returns follows months of turbulence that included an FBI raid, escalating lawsuits, accusations between Sherry-Lehmann’s former leadership and its landlord, and a bitter dispute over the whereabouts and handling of a multimillion-dollar trove of elite wine. But now, as The New York Post reported on Monday, the bottles — some valued in the tens of thousands each — are being released from their unlikely resting place: an air-conditioned basement in a corporate park in Pearl River, New York, stacked near racks of idle computer servers.

“It’s sweet,” said a Boston-based collector, one of the first fortunate clients to reclaim his wine. He recovered bottles valued at roughly $80,000 — including a coveted case of 1982 Petrus and another of assorted Bordeaux from estates such as Chateau Mouton Rothschild. “I’ll share one of these bottles with my father, who is 101,” he told The New York Post, expressing relief after years of uncertainty. He described the wines as “the first serious bottles” he bought in the 1980s, inspired by a book his father gave him by the legendary critic Robert Parker. Two wines Parker had given perfect scores became irresistible impulse purchases — ones now restored to him decades later.

The return of wines marks a stunning turnaround from 2022–2024, when hundreds of customers found themselves unable to access their Wine Caves accounts, contact the company, or even confirm whether their stored bottles still existed. Sherry-Lehmann, facing mounting debt and unable to renew its liquor license, eventually shut its Park Avenue storefront in March 2023 after 89 years. What followed — as The New York Post reported— was a collapse marked by silence, legal threats, and mounting outrage from collectors, many of whom had stored rare vintages with the company for decades.

Unbeknownst to most customers, Sherry-Lehmann had transferred roughly 32,000 bottles — worth a combined estimated $16 million according to court filings — to Blue Hill Plaza, the corporate park in Rockland County, in 2022. For many, the first confirmation that their wines still existed came only after FBI agents raided the facility in February 2023, seizing records and creating an official inventory.

Among those still seeking answers was the company’s landlord, Glorious Sun, a Hong Kong real-estate conglomerate and Sherry-Lehmann’s largest creditor, owed approximately $5 million in unpaid rent for the prime Park Avenue location. As The New York Post reported, Glorious Sun ultimately took control of the Wine Caves inventory and began initiating customer contact.

According to court records cited in The New York Post report, Glorious Sun has so far sent 820 letters notifying customers that their wines are stored in Pearl River and requesting proof of ownership. Edmund O’Brien, attorney for Glorious Sun, told the paper that a “minority” of letters bounced back due to outdated customer addresses — underscoring the complexity of tracking down bottles purchased, stored, and often forgotten decades ago.

“The next phase is dealing with the difficult cases,” O’Brien said. “It could take more than a year to locate clients we haven’t reached.”

Wine experts familiar with Sherry-Lehmann’s clientele believe many customers from earlier eras may no longer be aware they possess wine at all. “A lot of people bought wine from Sherry-Lehmann and forgot about it,” said Kevin Zraly, famed wine educator and author of the Windows on the World Complete Wine Course, who once taught classes at the shop. “Some of the customers may be too old to care, or they forgot they have it there.”

Zraly emphasized the extraordinary caliber of the vintages entrusted to Wine Caves. “The wines there are the highest level in the world,” he told The New York Post. “Only 1% of all wine in the world can age over 5 years, and the wines being kept at Wine Caves are that 1%.”

In an unexpected twist, Wine Caves — the storage arm formerly tied to Sherry-Lehmann — filed suit against Glorious Sun in September, accusing the landlord of holding the wine “hostage.” The complaint sought a temporary restraining order to halt distribution, claiming Glorious Sun was mismanaging the return process and undercounting the total inventory.

Wine Caves alleged that the real number of bottles stored was closer to 300,000 — nearly ten times the figure cited by Glorious Sun — a claim the landlord rejected firmly. Glorious Sun pointed to the FBI’s February 2023 raid, which found approximately 32,000 bottles on site. The landlord insisted its goal was simple: return the wine and reclaim the leased space.

From June to September, roughly 1,000 bottles had already been returned to 13 customers, according to court filings. But when the restraining order took effect, distribution abruptly stopped for six weeks. Finally, on Oct. 14, New York State Judge Thomas Zugibe lifted the restraining order, allowing Glorious Sun to resume what court documents called a “laborious” but essential effort.

The ownership of Wine Caves itself has been at the center of confusion and litigation. According to filings reviewed by The New York Post, Wine Caves’ new majority owner is James Galtieri, a respected figure in the wine industry and former U.S. importer for Château Lafite Rothschild for two decades.

Galtieri became involved after being brought in by Sherry-Lehmann’s former CEO, Shyda Gilmer — a central figure in the controversies surrounding the store’s collapse. After Blue Hill Plaza issued an eviction notice to Wine Caves in November 2024, Gilmer agreed to remove the wine within 35 days and pay $27,500 in back rent. Negotiations collapsed, leaving the wine in place and the conflict unresolved.

In April, Galtieri met with O’Brien and reportedly offered to cover the rent arrears and other outstanding expenses. But Glorious Sun rejected the proposal after Wine Caves declined to sign an indemnity agreement shielding the landlord from lawsuits in the event of disputes over returned bottles.

“My client doesn’t trust these people,” O’Brien told The New York Post. “We don’t want customers suing us for turning over their wine to these people.”

Galtieri did not respond to calls or emails from the paper.

Wine Caves’ attorney, John Balestriere, defended the company’s position in a written statement. “Wine Caves is not only an active business; it is actively taking steps to protect its clients’ wines and to move forward in the wine business relying on decades of experience and achievement,” he said.

Court filings reveal that Wine Caves seeks access to the wine in part due to substantial unpaid storage fees — an estimated $1.6 million — accrued over years. Glorious Sun has argued that Wine Caves’ lawsuit confirms the financial motivation, alleging that the storage firm wants the wine “so that it can collect storage fees.”

For the Boston collector who ultimately succeeded in recovering his wine, the return was a mixture of relief and mild disappointment. While the bottles were intact and fill levels remained appropriate, the labels showed discoloration, and the crates had clearly been opened at some point during their long odyssey.

He attributed the “sweating” he observed — slight moisture damage — to fluctuations in temperature, though nothing suggested tampering with the wine itself.

“I feel lucky it wasn’t stolen,” he told The New York Post. “I will probably have it over Christmas with a roast with loved ones and family.”

Such stories offer a rare glimpse of resolution in an episode marked by frustration and loss. Many customers still await notice; others may never be located. Some wines belong to estates of deceased collectors. Others may remain unclaimed for years.

For decades, Sherry-Lehmann was synonymous with luxury — a Park Avenue landmark that shaped wine culture for generations of American collectors. The store’s collapse, meticulously chronicled in a series of articles that appeared in The New York Post, has become a cautionary parable about mismanagement, opaque accounting, and the fragility of trust in specialty storage businesses.

Glorious Sun, having spent thousands of dollars contacting customers and maintaining the Pearl River storage space, continues to search for owners and return their wine. But the process remains complex, costly, and legally fraught.

The coming year will determine how many more bottles can be repatriated — and how many remain in limbo.

For now, for the lucky few who have received their crates, the long nightmare is finally ending. And for a 68-year-old collector planning to uncork his vintage Petrus with his 101-year-old father, the return of these bottles is more than the restoration of an investment — it is the return of memories, moments, and a taste of a life long intertwined with the wines entrusted to a name that once defined New York elegance.