Thieves steal 30,000 bottles worth EUR5 mln from famed Italian winery

Professional thieves have stolen 30,000 bottles of wine worth around EUR5 million from a Marchesi Antinori warehouse in Tuscany, the Financial Times reports. Antinori is Italy’s largest family-owned winery. The incident is believed to be one of the largest wine thefts in recent history. It may be the biggest ever in Italy and internationally, both in terms of the volume and value of the bottles taken, the FT notes.

Antinori, which traces its origins back to 1385, told the FT that thieves targeted its warehouse in Cortona, Tuscany, last weekend (October 3 and 4). The theft occurred just as the winery was preparing to ship a large consignment of some of its most valuable bottles to customers abroad. Seven masked men disabled the alarm system on Saturday night and used two massive trucks to haul away thousands of cases of the winery’s famous Tuscan reds such as Tignanello, Solaia, and Guado al Tasso, the FT writes. The wines typically retail for EUR150-500 a bottle. The theft was not discovered until Monday morning, when employees arrived for work. The company has surveillance camera footage, and police are investigating, the newspaper reports.

Antinori decided to publicize the theft in the hope that Italian wine enthusiasts might help track down the missing bottles, CEO Renzo Cotarella said. “We still hope we are able to find the wine...  two trucks cannot just disappear,” Cotarella said. “These wines have a great value, and I don’t know how they can sell all this wine around the world without being seen.” He said the winery also wanted to “protect the market” by warning potential buyers that bottles offered from unusual sources at tempting prices may be stolen property.

The winery generated revenue of around EUR263 million last year and exports to 170 countries, the FT noted.

Wine theft is not unusual in Italy, but thieves have typically targeted Michelin-starred restaurants with well-stocked wine cellars and made off with only a handful of particularly valuable bottles worth tens of thousands of euros each, the FT explains. This summer, for example, two men dressed as workers in hard hats and high-visibility clothing cut holes in the shatterproof glass at Milan’s Affinatore restaurant and stole several bottles of Romanée-Conti worth a total of EUR280,000.

Still, there are cases of wineries being targeted. This summer, the historic Banfi di Montalcino reported that 3,000 bottles of Alta Langa wine had been stolen from its warehouse in Piedmont, the FT writes. According to the company, the thieves “carefully selected the bottles,” and their choices suggested “they knew exactly what they were doing.” A month earlier, four thieves used a forklift to steal 3,000 bottles of Barolo in just under three hours from the Conterno Fantino winery, also in Piedmont.