3,000 bottles of Barolo vanished from a Piedmont winery. Thieves loaded them onto the winery's own forklifts and drove them off in vans they pushed to the road with the engines off

Over three thousand bottles of Barolo worth hundreds of thousands of euros disappeared from the Conterno Fantino winery in Monforte d'Alba, Piedmont, during the night from Wednesday, September 16, to Thursday, September 17. The masked perpetrators approached on foot up through the vineyards, likely got inside through a side window with no alarm, and loaded the bottles using the winery's own forklifts. They drove them away in two company vans, which they pushed all the way to the road with the engines off so that no engine noise would be heard near the neighboring houses. Gazzetta d'Alba ↗ Cuneo24 ↗

Three hours and not a single broken bottle

Security cameras caught four men entering the property just before midnight. All of them wore balaclavas, dark gloves, and black clothing, and moved in coordinated fashion. They spent roughly three hours in the warehouse. The local weekly Gazzetta d'Alba, which has been published in Alba since 1882, writes based on the footage of a trio, while most sources, including the daily La Stampa and the outlets Open and Cuneo24, report four. Cuneo24 ↗ Gazzetta d'Alba ↗

The end of the operation says the most about how well it was prepared. The perpetrators pushed the vans with their engines off for about one hundred fifty meters to the slope, so they wouldn't be heard from the neighboring houses, and only started the engines once on the district road. Il Post gives a shorter distance, around one hundred meters. And before they left, they parked both forklifts exactly where they had stood before. Cuneo24 ↗ Il Post ↗

The thieves left not a single broken bottle behind, and the warehouse was not left in disarray. Only the entrance gate was damaged. There is so far no trace of the two vans, and they could be key to the investigation. The Carabinieri unit from the town of Bra is leading the case together with the prosecutor's office, gathering camera footage from the surrounding area and cross-referencing phone records to determine which cell towers picked up the group's mobile phones. Cuneo24 ↗

The owners described the night tersely. "We didn't notice what was happening in the middle of the night, and unfortunately there was nothing to be done against a hit that was clearly studied and prepared down to the last detail," they said. The winery was back in full operation the very next day, with both Italian and foreign visitors coming through. The owners' appeal is unambiguous: "If anyone receives an unusual offer, they should call the Carabinieri immediately." Gazzetta d'Alba ↗ Cuneo24 ↗

They took exactly the stock currently on sale

The stolen bottles are Barolo from the 2021 and 2022 vintages, including large formats, among them Vigna Sorì Ginestra, one of the wines the winery is known for. These are not archival bottles from a back shelf. Cuneo24 ↗ SRF ↗

Under the designation's rules, Barolo must age for at least three years and two months from harvest, one and a half years of that in oak. In practice, this means the 2021 vintage could have gone on sale in early 2025, and the 2022 vintage only as of early this year. The thieves therefore made off with exactly the stock the winery is currently selling from, not bottles still waiting years in the cellar. Consorzio di Tutela Barolo ↗

European online shops show what such a shipment is worth. The Vigna Sorì Ginestra 2021 vintage sells for 88 euros for a standard bottle and 209 euros for a one-and-a-half-liter magnum, both tax included, at a German shop specializing in Italian wines. Superiore.de ↗

Every bottle has its own number

Cashing in three thousand bottles is, however, harder than it looks. Wines with Italy's highest designation, DOCG, are required to carry a state control seal. It is printed exclusively by the Istituto Poligrafico e Zecca dello Stato, a state enterprise under the Ministry of Economy and Finance that also produces Italy's official documents. Wineshop.it ↗

Each seal carries a control code and its own identification number, and these are exactly what make it possible to trace a specific bottle. Even an ordinary buyer can verify authenticity through the Trustyourwine service. The stolen shipment of premium wine is therefore not anonymous merchandise but three thousand numbered items. Wineshop.it ↗

That's also why investigators, according to Cuneo24, regard the theory that the theft was made to order as more than well founded. The thieves didn't go after whatever was at hand, but after specific labels. Cuneo24 ↗ WineNews ↗

The second such hit in Piedmont in three months

Not quite three months earlier, on the night of June 28 to 29, three thousand bottles also disappeared from the cellar of the Banfi company in the municipality of Strevi in the province of Alessandria. These were sparkling Alta Langa DOCG wines, including the Aurora cuvée, its rosé version, and the Riserva 100 mesi, and the thieves took whole pallets. With prices ranging from 26 to 110 euros per bottle, the company put the damage at several tens of thousands of euros. WineNews ↗ Askanews ↗

Banfi's president, Rodolfo Maralli, pointed out at the time exactly what makes wine an unusual target for theft. "The stolen bottles are identifiable and potentially traceable throughout the entire supply chain," he said, noting that the company had invested in traceability systems precisely for cases like this. WineNews ↗

The specialist outlet WineNews wrote after the September theft that, given the Piedmont precedent set by Banfi, one might ask whether there is a group specializing in break-ins at well-known cellars. It described this itself as a conjecture, not a conclusion of the investigation. Both cases share the same signature: familiarity with the premises, a targeted selection of specific wines, and, coincidentally, the same number of bottles taken. WineNews ↗

In Milan, the opposite model was at work

Another theft of premium wines in Italy this year had a completely different signature. On Sunday, June 14, at 7:33 a.m., two men in reflective vests and orange hard hats entered the L'Affinatore restaurant on Milan's Piero della Francesca street. The disguise worked in part because there really was a construction site in front of the establishment at the time. TGCOM24 ↗ Ottopagine ↗

According to the initial reconstruction, they drilled through the security glass of the entrance display case to reach the inner handle, and repeated the same procedure on the armored display case holding the most expensive bottles. They weren't after money and didn't stop at the other expensive wines. They took only bottles from Burgundy's Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, put them in a tool bag, and left. The alarm went off immediately, but the security service arrived only a few minutes later. By then they were gone. Ottopagine ↗

The restaurant itself put the commercial value of the stolen bottles at over 280,000 euros. It published footage of the theft on its Instagram and announced what it would do next. "We will publish the serial numbers of the stolen bottles so they can be identified and tracked, which will make cashing them in extremely difficult," it stated. And added: "A theft can take away great wines with a commercial value of over 280,000 euros, but it cannot take away the work, passion, and dedication we have put into our restaurant for years." TGCOM24 ↗

Why wine is an unusual haul

All three cases share one thing that sets them apart from a theft of electronics or jewelry. Premium wine is an exceptionally well-described commodity. It carries the winery's name, the vintage, the specific vineyard, and the bottle format, and in the case of Italian DOCG, there is also a state seal with its own number.

This is exactly what the victims relied on. Banfi pointed to its traceability systems, the Milan restaurant promised to publish the serial numbers, and the winery in Monforte d'Alba called on the public to report unusual offers. In all three cases, the reasoning is the same: if the loot can't be sold discreetly, its value drops even for whoever ordered it.

*Illustrative photo: Monforte d'Alba above the vineyards in Langhe, province of Cuneo, Piedmont. Wikimedia Commons, author: Zairon. License CC BY-SA 4.0.*