WINE THEFT: 2016 ALDO CONTERNO BAROLO ROMIRASCO

YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST FOLKS!!!

There were 120 bottles allocated to the US market. An enterprising thief broke in to our shipping container, unpacked all the bottles, and repacked the empty wood cases on to the pallet. We found out the wine was gone when they went to break down the pallet here in the US. The wines are labeled for US with Massanois as the importer of record on the back.

Apologies to all the collectors who were looking forward to this wine. Also, be on the lookout for these bottles at retail, particularly in Europe where we think the theft took place.

I will follow up with our press release on this when it’s distributed.

A wine mystery! Seriously, sorry to hear. Will keep my eyes open for this one.
178062BF-9B74-4FCF-8666-0DDD08551127.jpeg

Hope you had your insurance paid.

Intriguing that the thieves: i) specifically targeted that wine; and ii) spent the time to remove the bottles and replace the empty cases in the container.

Would have thought the second point would be very time consuming…surely would have been safer just to take the cases. Unless they were hoping for the discovery to be delayed by 4-6 weeks, by which time maybe they had offloaded.

There’s probably the importer labels on the back as well?

Damn Brent. Sorry for the (one hopes insurable) loss!

Just curious what is the approx retail price . I know nothing about this (make it most) wine.

Really sorry for the theft, that is some inside stuff…

Question though, and not to be a troll but when did this wine become the kind of wine that would be targeted for theft?

It seems like the Aldo side of the Conterno family is the least desirable in the Piedmonte scene, don’t get me wrong, I own some of these wines and enjoy them, just doesn’t seem like a target.

Has the perception changed?

Romirasco is $250+

Yeah, but I have the same question that Jason has. Why this wine? why not any number of hotter, chased after wines?



Because most theft isn’t some Oceans 11 group of masterminds, but crimes of opportunity. The person looking at the 10 cases of A Conterno isn’t thinking “damn, I wish that was Monfortino, I think I’ll wait for a bigger score.” Crooks who see opportunity to steal Rolexes (or even Tissots or Seikos) don’t decide to wait to see if Patek Philippe comes along.
They empty cases (and re-shrink wrap) rather than just steal because if they just stole entire cases someone at loading/checkoff, is sure as hell going to notice the partial/opened pallet. They probably wouldn’t make it home from their shift that night. So if they get $60/bottle from fence they cleared $7 grand

This

The person looking at the 10 cases of A Conterno isn’t thinking “damn, I wish that was Monfortino”

[winner.gif]

Oooh, I might be able to get these for $60?

Thieves, if you’re reading this, PM me. I can pay by Venmo or PayPal, and I can keep my mouth shut. I’ll even pay ground shipping if you can hold for cooler weather.

Inside job, in Europe.

I’ll be carefully reading the next few Becheur and de Negoce offers.

Yes, exactly.

For additional context: Aldo Conterno’s top wine is the Granbussia, and this year’s release would line up with the 2013 vintage, which was meh and Granbussia was not produced. So this was the most expensive wine in the container.

You can all go back and forth with your subjective opinions of the winery but as Brian pointed out this is a $250+ retail wine, so if you’re going to steal something this is probably what you want.

The 2013 vintage in Barolo was “meh”?