Thieves take pick of premium champagne

A London wine merchant had around £20,000 worth of champagne stolen after a break-in at Balthazar in Fulham. Director Charles Meyrick told ThirtyFifty that the thieves were ‘quite selective in what they took’, so he reckons that the bottles were probably stolen to order.

Among the haul were a long list of premium champagnes, including 40 magnums of 1990 Veuve Clicquot, 36 bottles of 1990 Louis Roederer, two jeroboams of 1975 Perrier Jouet Belle Epoque and six bottles of 1993 Amour de Deutz. Also taken were 11 bottles of 1975 Krug, which Charles said he found, ‘quite painful to lose’.

Several vintages of Cristal Champagne were also removed, though the thieves didn’t bother taking the 1979 bottles that looked cloudy. Charles said, ‘The thieves didn’t leave any fingerprints but we are still going through CCTV footage.’