Theft of prized 'Super Tuscan' vintages shakes Italy's wine world

[Getty Images Bank]
[Getty Images Bank]

Thieves have stolen 30,000 bottles of premium wine worth 5 million euros ($5.6 million) from a logistics warehouse belonging to Marchesi Antinori, a Tuscan winery with 600 years of history, in what is being called an unprecedented heist.

According to AP and other international media, a masked gang of up to seven people struck late on the night of Oct. 3 (local time), raiding an Antinori export warehouse near Cortona, outside Arezzo. The thieves bypassed security alarms and CCTV cameras with precision, then used electric forklifts inside the warehouse to load export pallets onto two large cargo trucks before vanishing.

The stolen bottles were all top-tier "Super Tuscan" wines. The haul included roughly 10,000 bottles of Solaia — a flagship label with a European retail asking price of 500 euros per bottle — along with key lineup wines Tignanello and Guado al Tasso. All stolen stock was confirmed to be the 2023 vintage, which had been awaiting release. Based on global retail prices in markets such as the United States, the actual losses are estimated to exceed $8 million.

Staff arriving for work Monday discovered the break-in. To allow Italy's Carabinieri paramilitary police to preserve the scene and secure the early stages of the investigation, the theft was not publicly disclosed until Friday — six days after it occurred.

Renzo Cotarella, CEO of Marchesi Antinori, said the stolen 2023 vintage was "particularly exceptional."

According to AP, the theft is the largest wine robbery in Italy since around 2,000 bottles of rare wine were stolen from a warehouse near Cervia in 2017.


shee@heraldcorp.com