A €5 million theft occurred at the Cortona headquarters of the Florentine winery Marchesi Antinori in the province of Arezzo: thieves stole 30,000 bottles, all 2023 vintage, including 10,000 bottles of Solaia.
According to Corriere della Sera, this is the largest wine theft ever committed in Italy.
A group of at least seven people operated last Sunday night, stealing a shipment of Solaia, Tignanello, and Guado al Tasso wines, priced between €120 and €300 per bottle. After disabling the alarm system and the cameras installed in the cellar, the thieves entered with two trucks and loaded the bottles using the company's forklifts .
The theft was discovered only on Monday morning, when the employees, upon their arrival, found the wine missing.
"It's certainly a very well-prepared gang," Marchese Antinori CEO Renzo Cotarella told the Corriere, "perhaps the same one that has targeted other wineries in Italy in recent months. A theft of this scale and value has certainly never occurred in Italy."
A haul that could be destined for collectors or bar owners , but which could still raise suspicions, especially for Solaia, of which only about 60,000-70,000 bottles are produced each year. "We are informing our customers around the world," the company explains, according to the Italian newspaper. "We want to warn them to be wary of offers outside of official channels."
"We still hope to find the wine. Two trucks can't just disappear," Cotarella added to the Financial Times. "These wines are highly valuable, and I don't understand how they can be sold all over the world without being seen."
(Unioneonline)