Thieves stole around 30,000 bottles of some of Italy’s best wines precious wines worth an estimated $5.8 million from a winery in Tuscany, in what the producer described Friday as the largest wine theft ever recorded in the country.
The theft targeted the Marchesi Antinori establishment near Cortona, in the province of Arezzo, where a group of at least seven thieves stole bottles of some of Italy’s most sought-after wines on Saturday evening.
General manager Renzo Cotarella said the thieves disabled the winery’s alarm system and surveillance cameras before entering with two large trucks. Using company forklifts, they loaded the vehicles with wine and fled into the night.
“This is certainly a very well-prepared group,” Cotarella said, adding that this may be the same group that has targeted other Italian wineries in recent months. “A theft of such magnitude and value has never taken place in Italy.”
Wine Spectator reported that in July, 3,300 bottles were stolen from famed Italian producer Castello Banfi.
Cotarella received the Winemakers’ Winemaker Award 2026 from the Institute of Masters of Wine, and the winery is well known for producing Italy’s most renowned vintages.
The thieves made off with wines, including bottles of Solaia, Tignanello and Guado al Tasso. The theft was discovered Monday, but the company made it public Friday to avoid interfering with the investigation.
Marchesi Antinori via AP 
The stolen bottles were all from the 2023 vintage and are typically sold at a retail price of between 150 euros (about $168) and 500 euros each ($560). Among them were around 10,000 bottles of Solaia, one of Antinori’s flagship wines, from what Cotarella described as an exceptional year.
The company, founded in 1385 and run by the Antinori family for 26 generations, said it was alerting its customers around the world to be wary of offers outside official sales channels.
“We inform our customers around the world and ask them to pay attention to any offers outside of official channels,” Cotarella said.
Authorities are investigating how the stolen wine could be sold. Police and carabinieri are examining surveillance footage and other evidence. Cotarella said he remained confident that investigators could trace the shipment, noting that it would be difficult to move two truckloads of wine without attracting attention.
This theft dwarfs previous high-profile wine thefts in Italy. In 2017, thieves stole around 2,000 bottles of rare wine worth 750,000 euros – about $840,045 – from a warehouse near the Adriatic resort of Cervia.
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