In a daring nighttime heist, burglars broke into a Paris restaurant and made off with over 750 bottles of high-end wine from its cellar, with the stolen collection valued at around €60,000 (£50,000).
The thieves, taking advantage of the late hour, targeted the restaurant’s wine cellar, where they seized numerous grand cru wines, some of which are valued at over €2,000 per bottle.
French authorities have not disclosed the name of the affected restaurant, but Le Parisien described it as a small establishment with an understated exterior and a warm, carefully decorated interior. The intimate restaurant offers only a dozen tables in a cozy, tastefully designed dining room.
During the night, the burglars accessed the cellar, where they stole hundreds of fine wine bottles, adding to a recent wave of similar high-profile wine thefts in Paris.
One of the most significant recent cases occurred at the renowned La Tour d’Argent restaurant, where over £1.25 million worth of wine was discovered missing from its cellar.
Jérôme Baudouin, editor-in-chief of the French magazine La Revue du vin de France, remarked to local reporters that this year has been a “bad vintage” due to frequent wine thefts. “Over the last five or six years, thefts have increased,” he explained, attributing the rise in crime to the surge in wine prices, particularly in Burgundy, where prices have skyrocketed, making wine a lucrative target for criminals.
Baudouin noted that the price of a bottle of Burgundy premier cru has soared from €50 to €400 in the domestic market over the last decade, making it especially attractive for thieves. These burglars often target small restaurants, break into their cellars, load up 20 to 30 cases, and escape into the night.
While some criminals are focusing on restaurant cellars in Paris, others are more brazen, even stealing grapes directly from vineyards while the owners are asleep.
The trend of wine thefts has not been limited to France. In Spain, for example, a couple was jailed last year for stealing fine wines—transporting their haul in rucksacks—from the Michelin-starred Atrio restaurant, including a rare bottle of Chateau d’Yquem 1806.
