Oenophile Outlaw? Individual Dressed as Old West Gunslinger Breaks into Winery and Causes $1 Million of Damage

An individual dressed in cowboy attire broke into a winery and spilled thousands of gallons of wine all over the floor. (Photo: AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)

Seattle, Washington news outlet King 5 on Thursday reported that a wine bandit entered a winery tank room in Woodinville, Washington, and drained 5,000 gallons of wine, causing what Fox 13 reported to be an “estimated $1 million in damage.”

After employees at Sparkman Cellars left for the Thanksgiving holiday, an anonymous individual clad in a cloak, mask and cowboy hat entered the barrel room using an employee keypad, according to the King County Sheriff’s Office. Once inside, security cameras captured two 2,500-gallon tanks of white wine being emptied onto the floor of the winery, flooding the facilities.

A few minutes passed, and the suspect fled the barrel room, vanishing into the woods surrounding the property’s perimeter with an umbrella.

In a video segment, Jake Whittenburg of King 5 News referred to Sparkman as one of “Woodinville’s largest wineries” and claims it just barreled all its wine to age after a “successful harvest.”

“Months of meticulous planning and production – gone in minutes,” Whittenberg said. “You only get one shot per year with each wine, and business depends on precise planning and timing to get to market.”

The following video from Fox 13 features the security footage of the incident and can be viewed below:

A few days later, employees returned from the holiday to a flooded barrel room, and nearly an entire harvest of white wine was lost.

According to King 5, employees are “scrambling to find solutions” and get orders ready. The local authorities are actively investigating the incident and have not identified a suspect to the public yet.

Fox 13 calculated that 2,500-gallon containers produce approximately 25,000 bottles of wine and estimated that the damage was $1 million, not counting cleanup. Anybody with information about the wine bandit is encouraged to call the Kings County Sheriff’s Office at 206-296-4155.

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