In the quiet hills of Tuscany, a heist of extraordinary precision stripped one of Italy's oldest wineries of 30,000 bottles and €5 million in a single weekend, going undetected until Monday morning. The theft at Marchesi Antinori — a house with roots stretching back to 1385 — speaks to something older than crime: the way beauty and value, wherever they concentrate, draw those who would take rather than cultivate. As investigators trace camera footage along Tuscan roads, the episode joins a growing pattern of wine theft across Italy, raising quiet questions about who guards the things a civiliz
Italian winery loses €5m in wine heist, largest theft of its kind
Two trucks full of merchandise can't just disappear
Mark
So seven men walked into a major winery and just took 30,000 bottles. How does that even happen?
Mimi
They disabled the alarms and cameras first. Then they used the company's own forklifts to load the trucks. It suggests they either had someone on the inside or had done serious reconnaissance.
Luke
We should be careful here—the company believes there was inside knowledge, but that's their interpretation. We don't actually know if someone tipped them off or if they just studied the place carefully from outside.
Mark
The CEO seems confident they'll recover the wine. Is that realistic?
Mimi
He's banking on the fact that two full trucks of premium wine can't move through Tuscany without being spotted. The roads have cameras, and these aren't bottles you can sell quietly in a local bar.
Luke
True, but that assumes the thieves plan to sell them locally or through normal channels. If they're moving them through organized networks, or breaking up the shipment, or exporting them, the cameras might not help much.
Mark
What makes this different from other wine thefts?
Mimi
The scale, mainly. The CEO said it's the largest theft of its kind ever recorded in Italy. Thirty thousand bottles, €5 million. There have been other thefts this year in Piedmont, but nothing at this level.
Luke
Though we should note—we only have the CEO's word that this is the largest. Italian media is reporting it, but I haven't seen independent verification of that claim across all of Italian history.
Mark
Does the company's size matter here?
Mimi
Absolutely. Marchesi Antinori has been around since 1385 and exports to 170 countries. They're not a small operation. This isn't a boutique winery losing its entire stock—it's a major player losing a significant shipment.
Luke
Right, and that might actually make recovery harder. A company that size probably has insurance and can absorb the loss. The thieves might have calculated that the company won't pursue them as aggressively as a smaller operation would.
O Pulso
- Seven masked men moved through a prestigious Tuscan winery with surgical confidence — disabling alarms, cutting cameras, and commandeering company forklifts as if they had rehearsed it.
- The theft went entirely undetected from Saturday until Monday, meaning the perpetrators had a two-day head start with two fully loaded trucks of some of Italy's most coveted red wines.
- The selection of specific labels — Tignanello, Solaia, Guado al Tasso — and the use of internal equipment strongly suggests inside knowledge, turning suspicion inward as much as outward.
- CEO Renzo Cotarella is banking on the thieves' own ambition working against them: 30,000 distinctive, traceable bottles cannot easily be liquidated on the global market without attracting attention.
- The heist lands as part of a widening pattern of wine theft across Italy, with Piedmont also hit earlier this year, suggesting the country's celebrated cellars have become a target of organized criminal interest.
In the quiet hills of Tuscany, a heist of extraordinary precision stripped one of Italy's oldest wineries of 30,000 bottles and €5 million in a single weekend, going undetected until Monday morning. The theft at Marchesi Antinori — a house with roots stretching back to 1385 — speaks to something older than crime: the way beauty and value, wherever they concentrate, draw those who would take rather than cultivate. As investigators trace camera footage along Tuscan roads, the episode joins a growing pattern of wine theft across Italy, raising quiet questions about who guards the things a civilization most prizes.
On Saturday, at least seven masked men entered a storage facility belonging to Marchesi Antinori in Tuscany and left with 30,000 bottles of premium wine — a loss worth roughly €5 million that no one discovered until staff arrived on Monday morning. The thieves moved with the confidence of insiders: they neutralized the alarm system, disabled the security cameras, and used the winery's own forklifts to load two large trucks with bottles of Tignanello, Solaia, and Guado al Tasso, wines that sell for between €150 and €500 each. The operation coincided with the winery's preparations for an international shipment, and by the time the loss was discovered, the trucks had long since disappeared.
CEO Renzo Cotarella described it as the largest wine theft ever recorded in Italy, noting that the precision of the operation — the specific labels chosen, the professional execution, the use of company equipment — pointed unmistakably toward inside knowledge. Yet he retained a degree of cautious optimism. Two trucks carrying thousands of high-profile bottles, he argued, cannot simply vanish; Tuscany's roads are watched, and wines of this caliber are difficult to move discreetly on the global market.
The stakes extend well beyond the financial. Marchesi Antinori was founded in 1385 and now sells to 170 countries, generating €263 million in revenue last year. The theft is an attack on a centuries-old legacy as much as a balance sheet. No arrests have been made. The incident also arrives against a backdrop of escalating wine theft across Italy — Piedmont suffered several significant raids earlier in the year — leaving the industry to wonder whether it is facing something organized, something opportunistic, or something in between.
On Saturday morning, thieves made off with 30,000 bottles of wine from one of Italy's most storied wineries. The theft at Marchesi Antinori's storage facility in Tuscany went unnoticed until Monday, when staff arrived to discover the loss—roughly €5 million worth of some of the country's finest red wines simply gone.
At least seven men, their faces covered, moved through the facility with the precision of people who knew exactly what they were after. They disabled the alarm system, cut the camera feeds, and commandeered the company's own forklifts to load two large trucks with bottles of Tignanello, Solaia, and Guado al Tasso—wines that typically command prices between €150 and €500 per bottle. The operation unfolded while Marchesi Antinori was in the final stages of preparing a shipment for international customers. By the time anyone realized what had happened, the trucks were gone.
Renzo Cotarella, the winery's chief executive, called it the largest theft of its kind ever recorded in Italy. "A theft of this scale and value has certainly never occurred in Italy," he told Corriere della Sera. The specificity of what was taken—the particular wines selected, the professional execution, the use of company equipment—all pointed to something more than opportunistic crime. The thieves, Cotarella believed, were people who understood wine and had help from inside the operation.
Yet Cotarella held onto a measure of hope. Two trucks loaded with thousands of bottles cannot simply vanish, he reasoned. Tuscany's roads are monitored by cameras. The wines themselves are distinctive, valuable, and difficult to move without drawing attention. "I don't know how they can sell all this wine around the world without being seen," he told the Financial Times. The company has asked authorities to trace the stolen merchandise, banking on the visibility of such a large, conspicuous haul.
Marchesi Antinori is no small operation. Founded in 1385, it has spent more than six centuries building a reputation that now reaches 170 countries. Last year alone, the family-owned business generated €263 million in revenue. This theft represents not just a financial blow but an assault on a legacy. No arrests have been made, and investigators are still working to track the trucks and their cargo.
The heist arrives amid a broader wave of wine thefts across Italy. Earlier in the year, the Piedmont region in the north saw multiple raids, with hundreds of thousands of euros worth of bottles stolen in each incident. Whether this represents a coordinated criminal enterprise targeting Italy's wine industry or a series of opportunistic strikes remains unclear. What is certain is that the theft at Marchesi Antinori has set a new benchmark—not one the industry wanted to reach.
Citações Notáveis
A theft of this scale and value has certainly never occurred in Italy.— Renzo Cotarella, CEO of Marchesi Antinori, to Corriere della Sera
Two trucks full of merchandise can't just disappear into thin air. The Tuscan roads are full of cameras—perhaps with a bit of luck we'll be able to recover at least some of the bottles stolen from us.— Renzo Cotarella, CEO of Marchesi Antinori
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