$8 million worth of premium Tuscan wine stolen in brazen overnight heist

A group of masked thieves stole about 30,000 bottles of premium wine worth ‌approximately €5 million (CAD$8 million) from a Marchesi Antinori warehouse in Tuscany, Italy’s largest family-run winemaker said on Friday.

Antinori, which was founded in 1385 and exports its products to 170 ​countries, alerted customers worldwide to be wary of offers outside ​official sales channels following last weekend’s heist and is still ⁠hopeful of recovering the stolen wine, Reuters reported.

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The thieves made off with 8,000 ​to 10,000 bottles of Solaia, the British news agency reported, as well ​as Tignanello and Guado al Tasso. The wines retail from €150 ($240). Some of its rarest vintages can sell for thousands of euros per bottle.

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The theft marks the second large-scale abscondment of sought-after Italian reserve this year.

In July, 3,300 bottles were stolen from the Banfi winery in Montalcino. The bottles were valued at nearly €100,000, about CAD$160,000, according to the industry publication the Wine Spectator.

The Florence-based Antinori said security camera footage showed seven masked men breaking into its Cortona storage facility last weekend, disabling ​its alarm systems ​before loading thousands ⁠of cases of the Tuscan red wines onto two trucks.

The theft was discovered on Monday morning by staff when they arrived at the warehouse and is now under investigation by Italian police.

The wines that were stolen had been prepared for shipment, meaning they were readily available for the thieves to load into their vehicles, a representative for ​Antinori told Reuters.

Global News reached out to the winery for a statement but did not receive a response.

Marchesi Antinori CEO Renzo Cotarella told the Italian publication Corriere Della Sera that he believes the thieves were “highly trained,” and speculated they might be the same gang that targeted the Banfi winery earlier this year.

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“A theft of this scale and value has certainly never occurred in Italy,” he told the outlet, it said.

No arrests have been made in connection with the heist, the New York Times reported Friday.

Lorenzo Vivoli, who works in the winery’s communication department, told the U.S. outlet he suspected inside involvement, given the disarmament of the warehouse security systems and timing of the theft.

Shipments of the size of the one that was taken only happen twice a year, he explained.

“They got the perfect timing,” Vivoli added. “It’s almost like they knew,” he told the New York Times, noting that the winery’s insurance policy will not cover a theft of this scale.

“We do have insurance, but unfortunately it will only pay us one-tenth of the price,” he said.

He said police in Cortona were investigating and had informed the winery that 30,000 bottles of wine would “not disappear.”

The wines that were stolen are highly sought after and produced in limited amounts, he explained.

Cotarella told the U.S. newspaper that the company was cooperating with police and “informing our partners and customers around the world, asking them to pay particular attention to any offers outside official distribution channels.”

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Global News reached out to Cortona police but did not recieve a response.