Cristina Mariani-May is the CEO of Banfi, Italy’s most honored winery and one of the leading vintners in all the world, offering acclaimed wine from many of the noted global properties including America. She is the third generation of her family to be in the wine business dating back to her grandfather in the early 1900s in New York with an Italian wine and food import business.

“My father John Mariani, along with his brother Harry, founded Banfi in Tuscany Italy in 1978, so they could produce their own wine, in Italy, primarily for the American public,” she explained. “They wanted to elevate the Italian quality in the pursuit  of excellence in the finer wine world.”