PEARL RIVER - A stash with thousands of bottles of high-priced wine sits in the basement of a Blue Hill Plaza building, and attorneys for the owners of the office complex say they are trying to reunite the rare vintages with their owners.
The wine, in a Blue Hill Plaza sub-basement, belongs to customers of Sherry-Lehmann, a legendary Park Avenue wine retailer that went belly up more than three years ago, and Wine Caves, an affiliated off-site company that specializes in fine wine storage.
The news that some 20,000 bottles are still stashed at Two Blue Hill Plaza in Pearl River was first reported in the New York Post.
The office complex's landlord, Glorious Sun Blue Hill Plaza LLC, says it's working on finding all the rightful owners. Efforts include
an ad in Wine Spectator magazine telling owners how to reclaim their bottles.
Wine Caves, though, is suing Glorious Sun in state Supreme Court in Rockland.
Wine Caves says the landlord should be giving the precious wine back to them. Wine Caves maintains they had been hired and entrusted by wine owners to store the goods.
When a wine giant goes belly up
Sherry-Lehmann shut its doors in 2023. Its state liquor license had expired, according to New York State Liquor Authority filings. The outfit at that point owed $2.8 million in back sales taxes to the state, according to The New York Times.
The bottles, some of which could be worth thousands of dollars, were being stored for "bailor customers" by the entities. Their storage space included a temperature-controlled space in Blue Hill Plaza off Veterans Memorial Highway in Pearl River.
Edmond O’Brien of the law firm Dorf Nelson & Zauderer, which represents Glorious Sun, told the NY Post that the landlord had returned some bottles but was continuing to track down the owners of others.
O'Brien did not immediately return a request for comment from USA TODAY Network.
Claims that rare wine is 'hostage'
Meanwhile, Wine Caves, which had leased space from Sherry-Lehmann at Blue Hill, is suing Glorious Sun Blue Hill Plaza LLC in state Supreme Court in Rockland.
Wine Caves, which stores fancy wines for collectors and connoisseurs, asserts that Blue Hill locked out Sherry-Lehmann without proper legal steps. And then, the landlord rebuffed Wine Caves' request to remove its wine so it could return products to its bailor-customers.
In effect, Wine Caves alleges that Blue HIll is "holding hostage millions of dollars of highly collectible rare and vintage wine and spirits."
The lawsuit claims that Glorious Sun Blue Hill not only stopped Wine Caves from serving its customers, the landlord also returned some products to owners and collected fees.
Wine Caves maintains that Glorious Sun should give them access to the wine they stored there, so they can return it to customers; should be provided any proceeds from the landlord's sales or returns of wine to people; and should have to pay legal costs and damages incurred by Wine Caves in its lawsuit.
O'Brien represents Glorious Sun Blue Hill LLC in those proceedings.
The case is before Judge Thomas Zugibe, is due back in Rockland Supreme Court Oct. 14.
Nancy Cutler writes about People & Policy for lohud.com and the USA Today Network New York. Reach her at ncutler@lohud.com; follow her on Twitter, Threads and Instagram at @nancyrockland.
This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Pearl River office complex is storing pricey wines tangled in lawsuit
