BY THE time Gianfranco Soldera realised something was awry, it was too late. “I rushed down into the cellar and all ten barrels of Brunello from the 2007 to 2012 vintages were open and the wine had gone off down the drains.”

On the night of December 2nd someone broke into Mr Soldera’s estate, emptied the massive oak casks of 62,600 litres of one of the world’s great wines and left without stealing a thing. Why is a mystery fit for Andrea Camilleri’s fictional Sicilian detective, Inspector Montalbano. On Sicily, the explanation would be obvious: Italians immediately compared the attack on Mr Soldera’s estate, known as Case Basse (“Low Houses”), to those on wineries confiscated from the Mafia. But Brunello comes from vineyards around Montalcino in Tuscany—a place where, as the mayor noted, people still go out “leaving the key to the house in the front door”.

The 75-year-old Mr Soldera is not a Tuscan. He was born near Venice. After a career in insurance, he arrived in Montalcino in the early 1970s to find the perfect spot for Sangiovese, the only grape allowed in Brunello. He began producing 10,000-15,000 bottles a year of a light-bodied, floral, long-lived red that nowadays retails on release in Italy at up to €170 ($222), but can fetch up to $500 after a while in America.

Mr Soldera was keener to make great wines than neighbourhood friends. He never hid his contempt for those who planted Sangiovese in inappropriate soil or used winemaking techniques that masked the grape’s character. When not drinking his own wine, he would rather open bottles from Piedmont or—even more controversially, France—than endure a Brunello he considered inferior. He was also an outspoken critic of rival wineries caught blending other grapes into their products in the 2008 “Brunello-gate” scandal. But he always denied he blew the whistle on them.

Mr Soldera’s wine was insured. But because of strict ageing requirements, no new Brunello can be sold until at least 2019. Until then his many devotees will have to turn to the secondary market. “A rare wine just got a whole lot rarer,” says Kerin O’Keefe, the author of a book on Brunello. “I would expect the prices to go way up.” In a statement, the Soldera family said they trusted the authorities would investigate the raid “with the help of all those who want to collaborate”.