Thieves have taken 30,000 bottles of wine, valued at around €5 million, from the historic Marchesi Antinori winery in Tuscany, according to Italian media reports.
The burglary occurred on a Saturday as the winery was preparing a consignment for export. At least seven masked men are believed to have disabled the alarm system, turned off cameras, and used company forklifts to load two large trucks with prized Tuscan reds, including Tignanello, Solaia and Guado al Tasso.
Renzo Cotarella, the chief executive of Marchesi Antinori, told Corriere della Sera that this was the largest theft of its kind in Italy. He added that authorities will attempt to trace the stolen wine, noting that “two trucks full of merchandise can’t just disappear into thin air. The Tuscan roads are full of cameras; with a bit of luck we may recover at least some of the bottles.”
The selection of bottles, which normally sell for between €150 and €500 each, suggests that the thieves were wine connoisseurs with insider knowledge.
The theft was discovered on Monday morning when staff returned to the warehouse. No arrests have yet been made.
Founded in 1385, Marchesi Antinori exports its wines to 170 countries and reported revenue of €263 million last year.
Italy has seen a spate of wine thefts this year, including two incidents in the northern Piedmont region where hundreds of thousands of euros worth of bottles were reportedly taken.
