One night between December 28 and January 4, while the owners of a tony home in Atherton, California, were vacationing, burglars struck. These were no ordinary burglars. They managed to get through a code-entry gate. Once inside the house, they passed by numerous electronic gadgets and headed for the cellar. The wine cellar. There, they pooh-poohed lesser vintages and went straight for the good stuff, including a 1959 magnum of Bordeaux worth $11,000. All told, they made off with $100,000 worth of wine, at an average of $3,000 a bottle. Wine theft is on the rise, because prices at auction have been mounting of late. And there’s no way to track hot wine—by which I mean metaphorically hot, bien sûr. Sounds like the perfect crime, if the thieves can keep out of the booty.
