Thousands of bottles of wine worth €5 million (£4.2 million) have been stolen from a prestigious winery in Tuscany, marking what is believed to be the largest heist of its kind in Italy. A gang of at least seven masked individuals broke into the cellar of Marchesi Antinori in Cortona on Saturday, disabling alarms and surveillance cameras before using company forklifts to load two large trucks with 30,000 bottles of wine.

The Heist

Among the bottles targeted were those most prized by wine collectors and consumers, including Solaia, Guado al Tasso, and Tignanello. Notably, Tignanello is recognized as one of the first red wines in the Tuscany region produced without white grapes. The stolen bottles, all from the firm’s 2023 vintage, ranged in price between €120 and €400 each.

The theft was discovered when staff arrived for work on Monday morning. Renzo Cotarella, chief executive of Marchesi Antinori, stated,

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"The gang was very prepared. A theft of this scale and value has never happened before in Italy."