30,000 Bottles Vanish in Italy’s Largest Wine Heist

Marchesi Antinori, one of Italy’s oldest family‑owned wineries, confirmed that 30,000 bottles of its prized Tignanello, Solaia and Guado al Tasso reds were stolen from its Tuscan storage facility on Saturday. The cargo, valued at roughly €5 million, was being prepped for shipment to international markets.

Investigations suggest that a crew of at least seven masked men disabled the site’s alarms and cameras, commandeered company forklifts and loaded two trucks with the stolen wine before driving away. The thieves apparently had insider knowledge of the inventory.

CEO Renzo Cotarella called it “the largest theft of its kind in Italy” and expressed hope that the country’s camera‑rich roads and traffic footage might help recover the cargo. “Two trucks full of merchandise can’t simply vanish,” he said. “With a bit of luck we may recover at least some of the bottles.”

The incident comes amid a spike in wine‑theft cases across Italy this year, with similar raids in Piedmont claiming hundreds of thousands of euros worth of wine. Marchesi Antinori, founded in 1385 and exporting to 170 countries, reported last year’s revenue at €263 million.

Authorities are still hunting the suspects and tracing the two trucks, which may have retraced routes captured by highway surveillance.