The £4million wine heist: Connoisseur gang steal 30,000 bottles of vino in Italy's biggest vineyard theft

Published: 00:00 BST, 10 October 2026 | Updated: 00:22 BST, 10 October 2026

Discerning thieves have stolen 30,000 bottles of fine wine worth £4million in what is thought to be Italy's biggest vineyard heist.

They targeted a warehouse in Tuscany belonging to Marchesi Antinori, one of the country's most prestigious vineyards.

CCTV footage showed seven masked men entering its storage facility in Cortona last weekend and disabling its alarm systems.

The gang then used the firm's own forklift trucks to load thousands of cases of Tuscan reds on to two trucks.

Antinori, Italy's largest family-run winemaker, said the timing and execution of the theft, which was discovered on Monday morning when staff arrived for work, suggested a highly organised group carried it out.

The wines had been prepared for a shipment to foreign distributors, so the thieves were able to remove a lot of high-value bottles quickly.

Marchese Piero Antinori with the enologist Renzo Cotarella pictured in the Marchesi Antinori winery in Tenuta Bargino

Discerning thieves have stolen 30,000 bottles of fine wine worth £4million in what is thought to be Italy's biggest vineyard heist (Pictured: The Antinori winery)

The firm said the thieves took 8,000 to 10,000 bottles of Solaia, one of Italy's most sought-after labels, as well as Tignanello and Guado al Tasso vintages. 

The wines cost from £150, but some of the rarest vintages can fetch thousands of pounds per bottle. 

A spokesman said: 'It's our biggest warehouse, where all the bottles go before being dispatched.

'They are among our most iconic labels and are certainly also prized by collectors.'

Antinori chief executive Renzo Cotarella said: 'A theft of this scale and value has certainly never occurred in Italy.

'Two trucks full of merchandise can't just disappear into thin air. 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.

'These wines have a great value and I don't know how they can sell all this wine around the world without being seen.'

Antinori, which dates back to 1385 and exports to 170 nations, has alerted customers worldwide to be wary of offers outside official sales channels, and is still hopeful of recovering the stolen wine. 

The theft is the latest in a series in Italy, following one in July at the Banfi winery in Montalcino, Tuscany.

Last month, 3,000 bottles of Barolo thought to be worth several hundred thousand pounds were stolen in Piedmont, northern Italy.