Around 30,000 bottles of wine worth 5 million euros were stolen from the Marchesi Antinori logistics center in Cortona, in the province of Arezzo. The robbery took place in early October and was only discovered when employees returned to work on Monday morning.
According to the reconstruction of what happened, at least seven masked men broke into the winery. They disabled the alarm system, interrupted the surveillance cameras and used the company's forklifts to load the wine onto two heavy-duty trucks.
Among the loot are some of the most expensive wines
The theft includes bottles from the 2023 vintage, whose price ranges between 120 and 500 euros. Among them are the prestigious Solaia, Guado al Tasso and Tignanello. The latter is known as one of the early red wines in Tuscany produced without the addition of white grapes.
3,000 bottles of Barolo Ginestra were also taken from the cellar, some of them in magnum format. The case is considered the largest wine theft in the history of Italian wineries, and investigators believe it was a pre-ordered operation.
Authorities are monitoring international market channels, as bottles of similar value can hardly be offered at excessively low prices without arousing suspicion.
The bottles can be traced
Renzo Cottarella, CEO of Marchesi Antinori, said that the stolen wine was identifiable thanks to the company's tracking system.
Each of the high-end bottles has a label that can be scanned with a smartphone and redirected to our website, where it can be checked whether the bottle is authentic.Cottarella specified that for the Guado al Tasso bottles, the system takes the form of a black and silver strip, rather than a standard QR code. According to him, buyers can check the authenticity of the wine, but they risk being accused of possessing stolen goods.
“I am very confident“ that investigators will find the stolen wine, Cottarella said.
The company also indicated that they will probably not receive full compensation, as insurance policies do not cover theft of such a scale.
A series of thefts in Italy
Just a few weeks before the attack in Cortona, a winery in Piedmont was robbed of 3,000 bottles of expensive wine. Such thefts usually require prior preparation and knowledge of the market. Collectors, bars and restaurants are mentioned as possible final recipients.
Sources: btvnovinite.bg