Castello Banfi is a family-owned vineyard estate and winery in the Brunello region of Tuscany. Castello Banfi is the brainchild of an American, John Mariani, and a distinguished Italian enologist, Ezio Rivella, who, as early as 1956, mulled over how to "bring Italian wine into the world market," as Mariani now puts it, back in the days when Italy's credibility as a wine-producing nation was at a low ebb.

In 1977, the Marianis, natives of Garden City, New York, purchased a 7,100-acre estate on the southern slopes of Montalcino. The acquisition would prove to be groundbreaking, indeed.

Castello Banfi became the pacesetter for the region. Other estates have since adopted many of its practices. Castello Banfi's neighbors also have benefited from the painstaking clonal research done under Rivella's watch in an effort to identify the most appropriate clones of the difficult-to-cultivate sangiovese grape.

Beyond the day-to-day aspects of winegrowing, the community at large has enjoyed a new era of prosperity ushered in by the Banfi initiative.