€5m Wine Heist: 30,000 Bottles Vanish in Tuscany

Fri Oct 09 2026 21:10:46 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)

A daring break‑in stole 30,000 bottles from Italy’s famed Marchesi Antinori. Find out how the thieves pulled it off, what’s at stake, and why it’s a shock in the wine world.

Three hundred thousand bottles of premium Tuscan reds were stolen from Marchesi Antinori’s storage, a blow worth around €5 million. The thieves, thought to be insiders, disabled alarms and used forklifts to load two trucks. The company, one of Italy’s oldest wineries, hopes cameras along Tuscan roads will help recover the loot. Similar wine thefts have hit Italy this year, sparking a new wave of security concerns.

A €5m heist rattles Italy’s wine world. Thirty thousand bottles of the prized Tuscan reds Tignanello, Solaia and Guado al Tasso were stolen from Marchesi Antinori’s storage plant in Tuscany.

Seven masked men, likely knowledgeable in wine, bypassed the alarms and turned the company’s own forklifts over to a pair of empty trucks. The haul snapped the company’s reputation for security and prompted the CEO, Renzo Cotarella, to call it the largest theft ever in Italy.

The wine, sold at €150‑€500 each, is curated for connoisseurs around the globe. The thieves picked the best of the best – a clear sign they were after high‑end bottles, not bulk crates.

Authorities are combing through camera footage from the roads leading out of Tuscany, hoping to track the trucks. Marchesi Antinori, founded in 1385 and exporting to 170 countries, is hoping the footage will reveal the thieves’ route and, perhaps, secure a partial return of the stolen legacy.

Italy has seen a rise in wine‑related crimes this year. Two other thefts in Piedmont already cost local wine producers hundreds of thousands of euros.