Italian wine heist won’t disrupt Canadian releases of Antinori’s iconic red wines

Two weeks ago, thieves drove away with 30,000 bottles, valued at €5 million ($7.9 million CDN) from Marchesi Antinori, Italy’s largest family-owned winery.

According to Antinori’s chief executive officer Renzo Cotarella, at least seven masked intruders disabled the alarm system at the Tuscan winery’s logistics warehouse near Cortona, 90 minutes from Florence. Then, they used the company’s own forklifts to load the goods: wines that were packaged and awaiting shipping to international markets including France and the United States. Their two trucks sped away with what is believed to be the largest wine theft in Italian history.

“This is a theft of unprecedented scale for the wine industry in Italy, carried out by a group that was clearly highly organized and well prepared,” Cotarella said.

This is not an isolated incident. Antinori’s fine wines are highly collectable, which makes them a target for the black market. This well-organized theft took red wines from the 2023 vintage, including the winery’s coveted labels Solaia and Tignanello. The winery’s labels feature a multi-layered anti-counterfeiting system, including embossed elements on the bottles, scannable QR codes and security strips. (The scannable elements, however, won’t help locate the stolen bottles.)

These measures help buyers ensure they are receiving authentic bottles. In 2019, Italian police arrested three suspects looking to sell 11,000 counterfeit bottles of Tignanello labelled as the 2009, 2010 and 2011 vintages which contained low-quality red wine. Another anti-fraud investigation uncovered 54,000 bottles of fake fine wines, including Tignanello, selling wine into Switzerland between 2016 and 2018.

The stolen inventory will impact market availability around the world, but won’t impact the upcoming releases of its wines in Ontario and other parts of Canada.

According to Mika Giroux, event management and sales representative for Ontario-based Halpern Wine Enterprises, one of Antinori’s international partners, inventory for upcoming Ontario releases has been delivered. Tignanello 2023 is featured as part of the Nov. 7 release at Vintages outlets in Ontario. Guado al Tasso 2023 and Solaia 2023 are currently scheduled for release at the LCBO later in the year, she says.

The biggest losses internationally include 10,000 bottles of Solaia, a cabernet-based blend produced from a 50-acre vineyard that only yields 60,000 to 70,000 bottles each vintage. (The 2022 vintage of Solaia sold for $587 per bottle at the LCBO.). The sangiovese-based Tignanello comes from a larger parcel on the same hillside property in Tuscany, which produces around 300,000 bottles each year.

Marchesi Antinori will be featured as part of Toronto’s 22^nd annual Grand Cru Culinary Wine Festival, a fundraiser for the University Health Network Foundation. Guado al Tasso 2023 will be among the wines poured during Halpern’s portfolio tasting Oct. 28 at the Enercare Centre.