Thieves have stolen 30,000 bottles of wine collectively worth about €5m (£4.2m) from a prestigious Italian winery, Italian media report.
Marchesi Antinori, one of Italy’s biggest family-owned wineries, said the theft at its storage facility in Tuscany took place on Saturday as the company was preparing to ship a consignment to customers abroad.
At least seven masked men are believed to have deactivated the alarms, disabled the cameras and used company forklifts to load two large trucks of the company’s prized Tignanello, Solaia and Guado al Tasso Tuscan reds.
The thieves disarmed the alarm system to carry out the daring heist, which took place at the weekend, but was only discovered on Monday when workers arrived to prepare the wine for export, Antinori’s CEO Renzo Cotarella .
The stolen wines were all from 2023 and include some of the winery’s most sought-after labels that retail for between €150 and €500 ($168 and $561) internationally.
“Solaia, and Guado al Tasso, and Tignanello are the most icon(ic) wines we have,” said Cotarella, describing them as category-defining examples of the famous “Super Tuscan” red wines of the region. Between 60,000 and 70,000 bottles of Solaia are produced each year, and the thieves took around 10,000 bottles.
Renzo Cotarella, the chief executive, told Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera this was the largest theft of its kind in Italy.
“A theft of this scale and value has certainly never occurred in Italy,” he said.
He added that he was hopeful the authorities would be able to trace the stolen wine.
“Two trucks full of merchandise can’t just disappear into thin air. The Tuscan roads are full of cameras – perhaps with a bit of luck we’ll be able to recover at least some of the bottles stolen from us.”
He told the Financial Times: “These wines have a great value and I don’t know how they can sell all this wine around the world without being seen.”
No arrests have yet been made. Cortona police said they were conducting an extensive manhunt, but would not say whether they believe the two trucks used to steal the wine were still in Italy.
“Given the scale of the theft, both in terms of the number of bottles stolen and their estimated market value, the incident may rank among the largest wine thefts ever reported,” Marchesi Antinori said in a statement. “The investigation by the competent authorities is ongoing, as are the assessments required to determine the precise extent of the theft.”
Cotarella said the company is urging consumers not to purchase these wines from unknown sellers, and to report it if any appear on the market. Because the wine was in the warehouse to be shipped out, it was boxed and packaged, making it easier for the thieves to remove.
The heist follows a string of other wine thefts. Last month 3,000 bottles of Barolo worth around €400,000 were stolen from the Conterno Fantino vineyard in Piedmont. It is unclear if the thefts are connected.
