Masked thieves stole about 30,000 bottles of wine worth over $8 million from Marchesi Antinori’s warehouse in Cortona, Tuscany, on a Saturday night, according to fortune.com. The theft, which took roughly three hours, targeted some of Italy’s most collected wines, including Tignanello, Solaia, and Guado al Tasso from the 2023 vintage.
The alarms in the warehouse had been switched off from inside the day before the heist, allowing the thieves to operate without triggering any security systems, Lorenzo Vivoli from Antinori’s communications office told fortune.com. The thieves arrived with two trucks and took about 10,000 bottles each of the three wine labels. Antinori CEO Renzo Cotarella described the theft as highly organized and unprecedented in scale for the Italian wine industry.
This theft marks the largest wine or spirits heist on record in Italy, surpassing the previous record of a 2017 theft in Cervia worth €75,000, per fortune.com. The stolen bottles have an estimated retail value of $430 per bottle for Solaia, $200 for Tignanello, and $190 for Guado al Tasso in the U.S. market. Antinori estimates the loss at about €5 million for European markets.
The stolen wine was already packed and ready for shipment to Antinori’s export markets, which facilitated the thieves’ quick operation. The incident highlights vulnerabilities in warehouse security for high-value goods. Antinori confirmed the theft and is cooperating with authorities to investigate the crime, according to fortune.com.