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The owner of the Relais Château hotel in the Burgundian region of France has plenty of reason to moan: the basement of the five-star hotel has been closed twice in the past few days, the Guardian reports, with thieves performing with a total of nearly $ 700,000 worth of good wines. The latest robbery, which took place early Tuesday, led to a car chase during which the thieves started throwing bottles of stolen wine to the pursuing police. According to authorities, the bottles were missed, and no one was hurt. After the road van crashed into a barrier about 20 kilometers north of Lyon, the burgundy burglars apparently fled on foot. An investigation is underway, and police are looking for at least three suspects.
In the Tuesday burglary, the hotel owner alerted an alarm about the theft that was going on. He jumped into his vehicle and chased the thieves while asking the police for help. Just 24 hours earlier, thieves had broken into the same basement unnoticed. Police are investigating whether the incidents are related. Theft of liquor is not uncommon in France: Last month, authorities in Bordeaux arrested 25 people who they say were part of a ring that stole and sold fine wines and whiskeys, according to Wine Spectator. In that case, known as Operation Magnum, police recovered 900 bottles of wine worth $ 6 million, Food & Wine reports, in what they called the ‘seizure of the century’. (Read more crime stories.)