Battle of the Bollingers goes to court

A divorced couple are fighting over a £350,000 wine cellar in a court action that has been dubbed the Battle of the Bollingers.

New York investment adviser Roger Yaseen says his ex-wife is keeping him from their wine collection so he is suing for custody of half of it.

Yaseen, 64, said in a lawsuit filed yesterday in Manhattan Supreme Court that the rare wine is in danger of spoiling - and he suspects his ex-wife, Janet, is tapping into his share.

When Roger and Janet Yaseen divorced in 1997 after 36 years of marriage, their divorce agreement specified that she would have custody of their vast wine collection and he would have visitation rights.

The couple had amassed thousands of bottles of wine at auctions and estate sales and on overseas trips.

Yaseen said his ex-wife let him visit the precious bottles for two years after the break-up but reneged on the agreement in September 1999 when he remarried.

Janet Yaseen, 58, a jewellery designer, and the wine live in a Fifth Avenue apartment and her lawyer, Michael Vogel, denied he ex’s charge that the wine is in danger of spoiling.

‘‘I know that it is a first-class wine storage facility that they have. It is a state-of-the-art cellar,’’ Vogel said.

Janet Yaseen hasn’t been drinking any of the wine, he added and accused her former husband of poaching some of the bottles, including a ‘‘significant’’ amount for his second marriage reception.

Roger Yaseen’s suit seeks a split of the collection, unspecified money damages and an accounting of how much wine Janet Yaseen has consumed.