I Finally Got My Hands on the Viral Beverage Fridge That’s Always Sold Out — It’s Worth Every Penny

One thing about me: I love a good beverage. Seltzer, Diet Coke, a gorgeous iced coffee, fancy kombuchas, non-alcoholic Ghia Spritzes, good natural wine, ice-cold cheap beer — the list goes on. As such, my mom once got me a wine fridge for Christmas that could hold up to 12 bottles of wine. It was nice enough, but it was no match for my apartment’s winter heating system and internal summer temps, so it could really only hold the wine at about 55 to 70 degrees. In the meantime, the top shelf of our fridge was entirely dedicated to beverages — not the most efficient use of space in a small New York City fridge that needs every ounce of free space it gets. 

So suffice it to say that I needed a better beverage fridge — one that could actually chill wine, but perhaps one big enough or versatile enough to hold seltzers, bottles of wine we want to store longer-term, and, of course, the aforementioned ice-cold cheap beer, so that I could also have the top shelf of my fridge back. And, one that actually kept the drinks cold. It wouldn’t hurt if it looked nice, too — our wine fridge was ugly and utilitarian, and didn’t even hold up the “utilitarian” end of the deal all that well. So I had my eye on the Rocco Classic Fridge — a gorgeous fridge that comes in a variety of colors and has a door of fluted glass — for a long, long time. And then I finally got to test one.

First, this mini fridge really is beautiful. It’s got such a fabulous retro vibe. The color I chose, a limited-edition Icy Blue, has a gorgeous quality that looks even better in real life. The fluted glass door is both practical (in diffusing light to protect the wine from the sun and UV rays) and beautiful. I love that I can have the lights on inside the fridge all the time if I so choose. While there’s a corresponding app where you can adjust settings on the fridge no matter where you are, there are buttons inside the fridge in the middle shelf where you can control temperatures, the zone, the WiFi setup, and more, which is also great — this is only a smart fridge if you want it to be, basically. The cooling modes are also incredibly well-thought-out. If it’s in party mode, your fridge works a bit harder to keep your drinks cool, so that people can open and close the fridge more often again. In quiet mode, your fridge uses less energy and keeps things cool but under the assumption that you’re not opening it every few minutes. Smart mode is a mix of the two. 

The shelves are adjustable, meaning you can move them up or down within the fridge as you please, which is good if you have bigger bottles like Bordeaux or even liter bottles that need a little more space. The racks are also reversible, with one side having thicker bars for cans or to separate your bottles and make sure they don’t rattle around in your fridge. And, ultimately, I just love looking at this thing. It’s so pretty. I never thought I’d look at a beverage fridge like it was a piece of decor, but I feel like it belongs in a magazine. Plus, it’s done the job I really needed it to do: It’s kept all kinds of beverages cold and cleared out valuable real estate in my already small kitchen fridge. 

On the most essential criteria alone — keeping your drinks perfectly chilled — the fridge performs. It works in any room as long as that room does not get below 55 degrees Fahrenheit or above 90 degrees Fahrenheit, and I really put it to the test, too — I got it set up in August, one of the hottest months in NYC, in my apartment, which does not have central air. I didn’t put together the fridge parts myself, but it would have been quick work if I had. Attaching the door handle is also easy — the fridge comes with a hex key and screws, and no extra tools needed. You connect to WiFi, set up the Rocco app, and then you press the WiFi button on the interior of your fridge to enter setup mode on your app. That all took a very small amount of time. The two-zone cooling system is brilliant, and the fridge comes with three cooling modes: party, quiet, and smart. The lower zone can be as cold as 41 degrees Fahrenheit and goes up to 61 degrees. The upper zone can get a bit cooler than the lower zone. The manual tells you which kinds of wine or beverages to store in each shelf (the top shelf should be bubbly wines like Champagne or Pet Nats, for example). 

The app is super-fun. To get an inventory of what’s in your fridge, you simply open up the fridge, all you do is pull out each shelf for five seconds, and push it back in. Then, the Rocco app takes a day or two to analyze the images it’s taken and tells you what you have in your fridge. It’s not 100% perfect. This feature is still in beta testing. It misidentified two bottles of wine as different grape types than what they are, and you can’t, as far as I can tell, manually enter information, but it was 90% accurate — and even if the details were slightly off on what wine I had, it served as a reminder of what wine I did have. Even more fun, the app pulls information about your beverages for you. If it’s wine, it’ll share the alcohol content, the grape, what the wine is best served with, and flavor notes. It’s perfect if I’m out at the grocery store thinking of what to have for dinner and then what to pair it with. You can control your fridge zone temperatures, whether the fridge lights are on or off, and what mode you’d like to keep your fridge in (party, quiet, or smart) all from your phone, too, which is nifty. 

This fridge is perfect for folks who want a two-zone fridge and who see themselves storing a variety of beverages. Because we have all sorts of different wines, cans, and even some sakes, and we will continue to have all sorts of different drinks, this fridge is absolutely perfect for us. If you want a fridge with smart features, this fridge delivers on that front, too, with the easy-to-use app that keeps an inventory of what you have inside of it at all times. Plus, if you want an appliance that’s just darn pretty — this fridge delivers on that front, as well. It gets really, properly cold as well — not just cold for a mini wine fridge. It just works. 

However, if you’re looking for just a single-zoned fridge, like one just for wine, or just sodas, you should consider looking at Rocco’s newest, most streamlined offering, the Rocco Essential. It gets even colder than the Smart fridge, down to 37 degrees Fahrenheit, but is single-zoned. The design is also delightfully retro and sexy, but in a more ’80s way, and it comes in three colors right now: cream, sage, and graphite. It holds 77 cans, or 105 if you buy it with the expansion pack of 2 more racks, and you can add a wooden handle or a serving tray. It starts at $1,095 under current early access pricing, but will be sold for $1,195 soon. 

Buy: Rocco The Classic Fridge, $1,795