Harry Mariani graduated from Colgate University, and started at Banfi Vintners USA in the late 1950s. He immediately began coordinating the firm’s administrative, commercial and marketing activity, soon becoming the company’s president.  In the following thirty years, he played a decisive role in the company’s development from a small family concern to America’s leading wine importer. In 1978, together with his brother John Mariani, Jnr, he gave life to “the greatest project ever realized for quality wine production in Italy,” Castello Banfi in Montalcino. In less than a year after purchasing their property in Tuscany, the Mariani brothers acquired the historic Bruzzone cellars, today Banfi Piedmont, in Strevi.