Thieves Take Off With $192K in Bottles of Wine From Michelin-Starred Restaurant

The exclusive restaurant’s wine cellar, believed to be one of Spain’s finest. (Photo: Coque/Facebook)

Burglars in Spain have taken off with 132 bottles of wine, believed to be valued at £172,000 ($192,536.80), from the two-Michelin-starred restaurant Coque de Madrid, according to The Times.

The theft took place early Sunday morning as the thieves broke in through a window which was accessed through a neighboring pharmacy that recently closed down. Coque de Madrid’s sommelier, Rafael Sandoval, shared with Antena 3’s magazine show Espejo Público that the thieves first attempted entry through a hole they made in the next-door property.

Since only the highest-valued wines were stolen, local police are calling the theft a “robbery to order,” the report detailed. A source told El País newspaper that the burglars were “very precise.”

Sandoval, one of three brothers who run Coque de Madrid, shared with Antena 3 that “more than anything it’s and emotional thing.”

“We are very concerned and hurt by what happened, not because of an economic issue, but because some of the stolen bottles belonged to my grandfather from very old vintages such as 1925 or 1936,” Sandoval said, as reported by The Drinks Business. “There were bottles that have passed from generation to generation and that not even the wineries themselves have. We are very bitter about losing these bottles that we held so dear.”

Among Coque de Madrid’s collection of 25,000 bottles is a treasured Demijohn recovered from a vessel that participated in the the 1805 Battle of Trafalgar, The Times shared.

“It was a high-precision robbery, these people could have robbed the bank of Spain,” Sandoval told Antena 3.

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