Marchesi Antinori, Italy's largest family-run winery, has had about 30,000 bottles of premium red wine stolen from its warehouse in Cortona, Tuscany — a loss worth roughly €5 million and the largest wine theft ever reported in Italy.
On the night of Saturday, October 3, at least seven masked men broke into the Antinori warehouse in Cortona. They disabled the alarm system and surveillance cameras first, then used the company's own forklifts to load two large trucks with wine before disappearing.
Staff discovered the theft on Monday morning, October 5, when they arrived at work and alerted police. Italian police and the Carabinieri are investigating; no arrests had been reported as of October 9.
The stolen wines include an estimated 8,000 to 10,000 bottles of Solaia, plus Tignanello and Guado al Tasso, all of the 2023 vintage. They retail for €150 to €500 a bottle — about €300 for Solaia, €120 for Tignanello and €140 for Guado al Tasso.
Solaia's annual production is only 60,000 to 70,000 bottles, so the theft took well over a tenth of a year's output. The wines had been staged and packed for an international shipment, which let the thieves load their trucks quickly.
Antinori CEO Renzo Cotarella told Corriere della Sera that the theft was the largest of its kind in Italy and that the gang was "very prepared" and highly organized. The selection of bottles, he suggested, showed specialist knowledge of the products.
In an interview with the Financial Times, Cotarella questioned how the thieves could sell the wine internationally without attracting attention: "two trucks full of merchandise can't just disappear into thin air." He said he hopes Tuscany's extensive network of road cameras helps recover the bottles.
Antinori has warned customers worldwide to avoid offers outside its official sales channels, saying the stolen bottles may surface on the secondary market — in the hands of collectors or restaurants. Buying stolen goods is a criminal offense in Italy.
The company also disclosed that its insurance does not fully cover a loss of this scale: a theft this large was never anticipated.
The heist is the latest in a string of attacks. The Banfi winery in Montalcino was hit in July, and in mid-September about 3,000 bottles of Barolo worth €300,000 to €400,000 were stolen from Conterno Fantino in Piedmont.