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The truth is, living my life with a regular fridge “fridge” had, up until this point, been perfectly fine. For many years, I’ve kept my wine bottles in plastic corrals and my canned beverages piled into a neat pyramid via the OXO refrigerator beverage mat. But as the market for cute canned bevvies grew (looking at you, Ghia, Canetta, and Las Jaras Waves), the shelf space in my refrigerator seemed to shrink.
Then I got married, and my husband and I ended up with several leftover bottles of June’s rosé, made by our dear friend (and master sommelier) June Rodil. The bottom shelf of our Frigidaire became a glorified wine fridge. A good problem, but a storage one nonetheless.
Honestly, in a world of rounded-edge toolboxes and toasters, it only seems natural that someone would come along to give wine and seltzer fanatics like me a cute space to store their bounty. Enter the Rocco, a new smart beverage fridge with app-controlled temperature, lighting, and a camera so that I can always keep tabs on my Tab. (Do they even make Tab anymore? I’m not sure, but I couldn’t resist the joke.)
Rocco Super Smart Fridge
Anyway, as the Rocco was on its way to our apartment, I wasn’t totally sure we actually needed it—but that was before I came home and saw the banana-hued beauty filled to the brim with cute cans of spiked seltzer, soda, and, yes, our wedding rosé. (Shout-out to Rocco’s founder and my husband for stocking it.) On one shelf, a rainbow of United sodas soothed my laptop-weary eyes, and on another, an arrangement of cool canned rosé made a mosaic that might as well have spelled out J-U-L-I-E, I L-O-V-E Y-O-U. Not only did the fridge look good, my husband and I agreed: Reaching for a can (it can hold up to 88, or 27 Bordeaux bottles) from one of the drawers made us feel really, really fancy.
A few nights later, we had people over, and while I wouldn’t buy a $1,500 fridge solely as a hosting hack, it is indeed a great party trick: Once you show off the fridge to your guests, they want to use it, too, and so you’re suddenly relieved from drinks duty. There’s also plenty of room on top for storing the hard stuff, so friends and family can be their own bartender. Plus it’s an amazing conversation piece: Tell your in-laws about the two cooling zones and show off how you can change the temperature right from the app.
Things to keep in mind: This is not your college mini fridge. It’s a solid, steel-framed piece of furniture, which means it’s very durable—and also very heavy. It sits between our kitchen windows, and it’s not moving. Ever. It also has reversible racks. One side is ideal for wine bottles, the other for cans, so you can stock it however you see fit. But most of all, the Rocco fridge does what the best-designed products do: It serves a function and it’s beautiful to look at. Now excuse me while I grab a canned seltzer.
Editor’s note: Rocco recently released a new cream color of the Super Smart Fridge in collaboration with Las Jaras Wines. If you order it, you’ll receive a year of a Las Jaras Wine Club membership: that means six free bottles delivered over the course of 365 days. Plus you’ll get a complimentary welcome shipment and a six-pack of Waves canned wines, all valued at $350.