A gang of thieves has committed the biggest theft in the history of Italian wineries: 30,000 bottles valued at 5 million euros.
The target was the Marchesi Antinori winery in Cortona (Arezzo), the Florentine company founded in 1385 and which has been in operation for 26 generations. It was a meticulously organized robbery last Sunday night by a group of at least seven thieves who managed to steal a shipment of Solaia, Tignanello and Guado al Tasso wines.
The assailants deactivated the alarm system and disabled the cameras that monitored the interior and perimeter of the warehouse. Then they entered with two large trucks. They used company equipment, forklifts, to load the trucks. Later, they disappeared. Both the Carabinieri and the police are investigating.
"Without a doubt, this is a highly trained gang," says Renzo Cotarella, executive director of Marchesi Antinori, "perhaps the same one that has robbed other wineries in Italy in recent months. A robbery of this magnitude and value has never occurred in Italy."
The destination of the shipment remains to be seen, as the stolen merchandise could be sold to both collectors and bar owners. However, it is difficult not to raise suspicions in the market given the sudden increase in the supply of these bottles.
Especially from Solaia: only between 60,000 and 70,000 bottles are produced per year, and 10,000 bottles were stolen from the 2023 harvest, perhaps the best in the last twenty years.
"We are informing our customers around the world," explains the company led by Albiera Antinori, "we want to warn them to be careful with offers outside official channels." This is also because the purchase of stolen merchandise constitutes a crime of receiving stolen goods.
Cotarella has "a lot of faith in the investigators. Two trucks full of merchandise cannot simply disappear into thin air. The Tuscan roads are full of cameras; perhaps with a little luck we can recover at least some of the bottles that were stolen from us. All from the 2023 harvest, an excellent year."
Until last week, a theft of that magnitude was unthinkable for the company. The theft insurance policy did not cover such a large sum. "We had always contemplated the possibility that some boxes of wine would be stolen during transport, not that two trucks could enter the winery and take such a large quantity."
Stolen wines are among the best known to collectors and consumers. Tignanello is the flagship Super Toscano, born in the 1970s thanks to the creative talents of winemaker Giacomo Tachis, the same one who created Sassicaia. A bottle sells for 120 euros. Solaia, on the other hand, costs more than double: 300 euros. While Tignanello is a Sangiovese with small amounts of Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon, Solaia, produced on the same hill as Tignanello, is a blend composed primarily of Cabernet Sauvignon and Franc with Sangiovese. Guado al Tasso is the name of the winery that Antinori opened in Bolgheri in 1990. A bottle sells for about 140 euros; is a Bordeaux-style blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Cabernet Franc.
It is likely that the large gang of wine thieves carry out these thefts on a commission basis. This was the case in mid-September at the Conterno Fantino winery in Monforte d'Alba. 3,000 bottles of Barolo Sorì Ginestra were stolen, including magnums and jeroboams, with a total value of between 300,000 and 400,000 euros.
