May 20, 2026
A pinot noir theft in Virginia proved no ordinary case of wine and dash.
Instead, a lawyer for one of the convicted likened it to “an episode of Scooby-Doo” because the thieves showed up in disguise, complete with wigs and trench coats with deep enough pockets to hide the vino.
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The theft occurred last November at L’Auberge Provencale Inn & Restaurant in Boyce, Virginia, when a man and a woman requested a tour while posing as event planners for a wealthy Canadian client, according to the establishment’s website.
The pair managed to swap several expensive bottles, including a DRC Romanée-Conti pinot noir, for screw-cap decoys while touring the restaurant’s prized wine cellar. The DRC, from the famed Burgundy estate, is valued at $24,000 according to the Washington Post. Another stolen bottle was reportedly worth $7,000.
“This was a planned-out heist,” Matthew Bass, a Clarke County attorney, told the Winchester Star. “They knew what they were after.”
But five months later, when hopes of recovering the wines appeared to be lost, the story took another unexpected twist. An anonymous contact returned the bottles shortly before one of the accused was sentenced.
A full-bodied theft with notes of deception and intrigue
Christian Borel, the sommelier at L’Auberge Provencale, didn’t expect to see the wines again.
“They’re probably gone already,” he explained in a video released before they resurfaced, speculating they had been sold to “some rich guy in Hong Kong, Singapore, London, doesn’t matter.”
He described the stolen DRC “the wine of basically the billionaires” due to its rarity and expense per bottle, which can start at around $15,000. One wine pricing site puts the current global average cost of DRC at $23,547 for a 750-milliliter bottle.
“Over the years, we’ve been able to get a couple of these bottles,” Borel said. “They were the crown jewels of our wine cellar.”
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Borel was also the person who sniffed out the scam.
He said his suspicions were raised when the couple abruptly cut short the tour. As soon as they left, he discovered the swapped bottles.
Borel and another staff member pursued the couple on foot, while a customer joined the pursuit, not in a floral-print Mystery Machine van, but a Porsche.
Borel said that he grabbed hold of the thieves’ getaway car after the male suspect, identified by police as Nikola Krndija, climbed inside. He let go to avoid being run over. The getaway car rammed the Porsche as it sped off.
The woman, identified as Natali Ray, failed to make it into the vehicle and was arrested. She was convicted of grand larceny, defrauding an inn and possession of burglary tools, and was sentenced to one year in jail.
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Krndija managed to board a flight to Vienna and is still at large, according to the Washington Post.
In April, shortly before Ray’s sentencing, the DRC and the second missing bottle were returned after an anonymous tip provided to Ray’s son, who turned them in.
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Weighing the value of fine wine
Celeste and Alain Borel, who own L’Auberge Provencale, say that even though the wine bottles have been returned, their value has likely dropped sharply because there’s no way to know whether they were stored under proper conditions.
“Nobody is going to pay $24,000 not knowing how the wine was kept,” Alain said.
“As far as I’m concerned, there is no way that I can assure they’re good,” Celeste added.
The fact that the wines were returned at all is unusual.
One U.S. attorney who prosecuted wine thefts told Bloomberg that “diamonds are easier to trace than wine” because, when thousands of cases of a vintage exist, “How do you tell one bottle from the next?”
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Some wineries include serial numbers, while others, such as DRC, produce only small batches each year.
Even when recovered, the resale value of fine wine can tumble. One expert told the Los Angeles Times that legitimate resale prices may fall to about 50% of a bottle’s original value. Stolen bottles sold on the black market would likely fetch even less.
Still, the rewards can be substantial. In 2024, authorities busted a crime ring selling counterfeit DRC for €15,000, or about $17,400, per bottle, generating more than $2.3 million.
As for the Borels, they’re prepared to take steps to ensure nothing like this ever happens again.
“Hospitality is kind of based on trust,” Celeste said. “Nobody’s getting a cellar tour again unless I happen to know them extremely well already.”
Article Sources
We rely only on vetted sources and credible third-party reporting. For details, see our editorial ethics and guidelines.
The Washington Post (1); L’Auberge Provencale (2); Winchester Star (3); YouTube (4); Wine-Searcher (5); Bloomberg (6); Los Angeles Times (7); The Times (8)
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Mike Crisolago is a Sr. Staff Reporter at Moneywise with nearly 20 years of experience working as a journalist, editor, content strategist and podcast host. He specializes in personal finance writing related to the 50-plus demographic and retirement, as well as politics and lifestyle content.
