A man has been arrested in the prestigious French wine region of Burgundy after allegedly stealing 7,000 bottles worth around 500,000 euros from a string of employers, prosecutors said earlier this week.
Local newspaper the 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 in addition to what was described as "the work of a lifetime".
Around 7,000 others had been accumulated over 15 years from other wine estates where the man had worked around the historic town of Beaune, in Burgundy.
They included grands crus from producers in Vosne-Romanee worth more than 1,000 euros, it added.
However, nothing indicates the man had actually sold a single bottle, Dijon prosecutor Olivier Caracotch told the French news agency AFP.
He has been freed on bail and will go on trial this summer.
(with AFP)
