The Times

Wine dynasty in the red after “insider” launches €5m Italian job … Masked thieves stole 30,000 fine bottles from the Florence based producer after an alarm was deactivated in one of history’s largest wine thefts. An insider may be behind one of the largest wine heists in history, according to the prestigious dynasty that lost 30,000 bottles in last weekend’s theft. Last Saturday night, seven masked men broke into the heavily secured logistics hub of Marchesi Antinori, a Florence-based wine producer founded in 1385. They loaded dozens of pallets of CCTV cameras recorded the gang carrying out the theft at the site in Cortona in the province of Arezzo, but the facility’s alarm system had been turned off beforehand, an Antinori press official told The Times. The staff did not discover the theft until Monday morning. “The alarm had already been deactivated on Friday,” the official said. “It was switched off internally, which makes us suspect
somebody on the inside was working with the thieves.” The wine was being held in the temperature-controlled warehouse as it was supposed to be shipped out to merchants around the world, including in the US and Europe. Such major shipments are organised only once or twice a year, the company said. The thieves exploited a narrow window and targeted the finest stock, which suggests they were well prepared, said Renzo Cotarella, Antinori’s chief executive. “These were people who knew what they were doing,” he said. “They weren’t simply thieves who had no idea what they were stealing. Cotarella added: “Something like this has never happened anywhere in the world.” The stolen stock included three of the company’s flagship “Super Tuscan” reds — Tignanello, Solaia and Guado al Tasso — which can easily sell for €550 a bottle. About 10,000 bottles of Solaia were stolen, equating to between a fifth and an eighth of annual production depending on the year, Cotarella said. The wine is produced on the Tignanello estate near Florence. “Not even we employees can get any of the Solaia,” said Cotarella. “If someone wants to buy the wine at our store, they are limited to one bottle.” The haul also included a smaller quantity of sparkling white produced in Italy’s northern Franciacorta territory. Each bottle’s label bears its own individual serial and QR codes, allowing their owners to determine their authenticity. Police are investigating the case. The Antinori robbery comes after a series of thefts targeting expensive wines in Italy. In July Castello Banfi, based near Siena in Tuscany, reported that 3,300 bottles of its best Alta Langa wine had been stolen from its Piedmont cellar, with robbers “selecting the bottles with great care”. “Three thefts have occurred in succession,” said Alessandro Regoli, the editor of WineNews, an Italian website. He added that the Antinori heist was “one of the biggest wine thefts in history”. In 2014, robbers broke into the Marsala winery of Donnafugata, a Sicilian producer, stealing 15,000 bottles worth €150,000. Some of the wine was later recovered but had to be destroyed because it had been kept in summer warehouses unsuitable for wine storage, said Antonio Rallo, the head of Donnafugata. He added that, like in the Antinori case, thieves had entered the storage facility after the alarm was deactivated. Police The wine was recovered after a Donnafugata employee noticed wine from batches that had not yet been released in a Marsala restaurant. The carabinieri were then able to trace the bottles through a chain of buyers and sellers, including two Sicily bars, back to the security guard, according to reports. Rallo said the bottle’s codes indicating production lots had been key in tracing the wine. He added that the impact of wine thefts went far beyond their financial value. “If they steal large quantities of a wine that sells out every year and is sold only by allocation, to customers who have bought it consistently, the damage is much greater than the value of the goods,” he said, suggesting stocks could take years to replenish. “You can’t bring forward the release of a different vintage because the wine isn’t ready.” Ex-air hostess makes history as French wine-tasting champion Cotarella said the company’s insurance would not cover the theft. The company could potentially identify the stolen bottles by reading the unique codes on those remaining in the warehouse, although doing so would take time He added that he was hopeful about a future recovery. “They can certainly sell the wine,” he said of the robbers, “but the quantities are so large that I hope they will attract attention”.