A man has been arrested in the prestigious French wine region of Burgundy after allegedly stealing 7,000 bottles worth around €500,000 ($550,000) from a string of employers, prosecutors said on Thursday, February 22.
Local newspaper Journal de Saone-et-Loire, which first reported the case, said the 56-year-old was filmed by a security camera taking four bottles of wine from his employer, who went to the police.
A search of his and his mother's house found the four bottles – and around 7,000 others that he had accumulated over 15 years from other wine estates where he had worked around the historic town of Beaune, the daily said.
They included grands crus from producers in Vosne-Romanee that can be worth more than €1,000, it added.
However, nothing indicates he had sold a single bottle, Dijon prosecutor Olivier Caracotch told Agence France-Presse. The 56-year-old has been freed on bail and will go on trial this summer, Caracotch said.