Profile & Work
Kevin Day is a wine writer, photojournalist and certified travel advisor with a focus on Italy, France, Spain and Austria. He lives in Denver, CO where he conducts classes, seminars and wine dinners, and advises on private collections.
In 2025, Kevin published his first book, Opening a Bottle: Italy, a tribute to many of the benchmark families who are redefining modern Italian wine through a devotion to biodiversity, a fearless embrace of the toil demanded by the land, and a re-evaluation of traditional techniques. The book featured a foreword by renowned wine writer Anthony Giglio, nearly 170 photos drawn from Kevin’s years documenting Italian wine, and an in-depth compendium of 100 Wines to Admire from Sicily to Valle d’Aosta. Forbes listed it as one of 9 “Essential Wine Books of 2025.”
In addition to his editorial work at Opening a Bottle, Kevin now offers personalized wine travel planning through Fora, designing curated European itineraries for clients who want to experience wine country and culinary culture the way insiders do.
Peer Recognition
From Anthony Giglio’s Foreword to Opening a Bottle: Italy
When Kevin Day asked me to write the foreword to this book, I didn’t hesitate. Here is a guy who, by his own admission, has no known genealogical connection to Italy, and yet somehow, he speaks fluent Italian soul. He gets it – not just the technical stuff (though he’s got that, too), but the feeling that Italian wine inspires: the pride, the struggle, the reverence for legacy, and the cheeky rebellion that says, “We can do it our way.”
Philosophy & Essence of the Book
The backbone of this book is pure Italian: native grapes you’ve never heard of, wild places you’ll want to get lost in, stubborn families who wouldn’t dream of giving up, and that glorious tension between tradition and modernity. I’ve seen these truths play out over my thirty-plus years in wine. When I first started writing about it in the early ’90s, Italian wine was still a punchline. (Pescevino Bianco in a fish-shaped bottle, anyone?) Today, it’s one of the most thrilling, dynamic, and proudly unruly sources of fine wine in the world. Italy didn’t “catch up” to France or Spain; it bulldozed its own path.
Back then, nobody in America wanted to talk about obscure indigenous grapes like Schioppettino, Carricante or Aglianico. Now? They’re the secret handshake among sommeliers and savvy drinkers. Biodiversity, improbably steep vineyards, wines that taste unapologetically like somewhere – not just good but authentic – these are the pillars of modern Italian wine. It has never been about perfection; it’s about passion. It’s about a farmer coaxing the best from a hillside that’s been stubborn for generations. It’s about a family digging their roots deeper into the soil even when the world outside their village forgets they exist. It’s about understanding that greatness often looks messy, and that beauty often comes from the hard road, not the easy one.
Reviews
At once serious yet whimsical, informative but a delight to relish, Day’s unique perspective (and stunning photography) gives us access to producers both iconic and emerging.
In prose that is at once effortlessly elegant and sneakily informative, Kevin Day has captured the stories that unlock Italian wine’s countless facets. Consider this your concise, companionable key.
Elegant, modest, heartfelt and insightful, Kevin Day’s Opening a Bottle: Italy takes us to what matters about wine: its stories, its creators, its power to illuminate.