A Well-Traveled Wine

A couple of weeks ago, I was fortunate to join the Wine Circle on a trek to wine country. (Hannah [1] and Janine [2] also wrote about their experiences!) One of the things that I noticed in the cellar of the French Laundry was that a number of very nice bottles of wine appeared to have an odd sticker on them that said “A Well Traveled Wine.”

The mysterious sticker:

Before I could even ask, the sommelier who was giving us a tour mentioned that there had been a cellar break-in several years ago and the labeled wines had been stolen and then recovered. A wine heist? I had to know more.

It turned out that in 2014, a group had broken into the French Laundry while it was being remodelled and stole 110 bottles of wine worth more than $870,000 [3]. (For those keeping score at home, that’s almost $8000 a bottle). It seemed that the thieves knew what they were looking for -- they cherry picked several premier wines:

• Domaine de la Romanée-Conti: the famed Burgundy producer
• Screaming Eagle: the cult Oakville favorite
• Dom Perignon: the prestigious champagne 
• Jacques-Frédéric Mugnier: another famed Burgundy Grand Cru

The majority of the bottles turned up on the other side of the country a couple months later when someone purchased several cases of rare wine from a broker they had previously worked with, but with the publicity surrounding the break-in at the French Laundry, came to suspect might be stolen [4]. The authorities were able to confirm that this was the stolen wine because the French Laundry had previously noted the serial numbers on the bottles.

More importantly, the thieves were apprehended. They also admitted a wine theft at a steakhouse (where they went for rare Bordeauxs) and a wine store in San Francisco [5]. With time, the wine made its way back across the country and into the newly renovated cellar -- now with the mysterious labels I noticed attached!

[1] https://rappwinter2020.blogspot.com/2020/02/what-does-3-star-michelin-restaurant.html
[2] https://rappwinter2020.blogspot.com/2020/02/super-super-super-premium-wines-how.html
[3] https://www.thedrinksbusiness.com/2018/01/second-thief-jailed-over-800k-french-laundry-wine-heist/
[4] https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/french-laundry-wine-stolen
[5] https://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Modesto-man-gets15-month-prison-term-in-2014-11034771.php