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Thursday, June 27, 2019
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com ARTS
The temperature in subur-
ban, seaside New Jersey has
climbed to exactly rosé degrees
Fahrenheit, which is just a few
degrees warmer than springtime
Chardonnay and a full 360 from
musing autumn Cabernet. Sum-
mertime near the shore means
one thing: Everyone is grabbing
for a glass of that chilled, light,
millennial pink wine and toast-
ing “cheers” as early as 11 a.m.
on a Friday. But what is it, really,
about the wine that’s so attrac-
tive when mid-June hits and
you’re near the ocean?
Not to make an assumption,
but I’ll assume most people don’t
really know why rosé is pink, and
why other wines are simply red
or white. Wine is quite the sci-
ence, and winemakers are some
of the world’s most romantic,
tipsy scientists in the world. I
normally don’t take much inter-
est in chemistry, but when wine
is our final result, I’m listening.
For Italy’s sake, and the sake of
celebrating wine and heritage,
let’s call rosé by its proper name,
“rosato.”
When
winemakers
make rosato, as opposed to a red
or white wine, they incorporate
only some of the color from the
grape skins — but not enough to
qualify the beverage as red wine.
Interestingly enough, rosato
may be the oldest form of wine
because it is actually the most
straightforward to make, due
in part to the light grape skin
contact method. When making
rosato, the grapes are crushed,
and their skins remain in contact
with the juice for a very short
period of time — normally, no
longer than 20 hours. The skins
are not in contact throughout
fermentation, as they would be
with a red wine. The longer the
skin is in contact with the juice,
the darker the color will be;
therefore, making that perfect
bottle of rosato is a bit of a slip-
pery slope. A bottle of rosato can
come in plethora of colors: from
nearly sheer yellow-pink, akin to
a sweet onion skin, to a vibrant,
near-fuschia.
However,
true,
authentic rosato tends to lean to
the lighter side, so, if you’re in a
wine shop without a clue, reach
for something that resembles the
inside of a peach, not the tube of
baby-pink lipstick.
It’s been said that many of the
earliest red wines were made
similar to modern day rosatos,
so, our counterparts in ancient
Roma may have been celebrat-
ing summer Fridays similarly to
how we are today. One thing they
didn’t have back then though: the
marketing paradise we call Insta-
gram. Today, rosato has become
so much about the look of the
wine and the appearance of the
bottle, and not so much about the
taste. These days, on your white-
painted picnic table overlooking
the sea, even what’s in your ice
bucket has to fit the theme, the
color scheme and the “brand” of a
Hampton’s summertime, no mat-
ter where you are. Wölffer Estate
seemed to master this when they
created Summer in a Bottle Rosé,
otherwise known as the most
Instagrammable bottle of rosé
you’ve ever seen. It costs any-
where between 22 and 25 dollars
at most liquor stores, and is deco-
rated with multicolored flowers,
accenting its blush, sunset color.
The winery has been around for
about 30 years and calls Bridge-
hampton home, using their loca-
tion to their additional advantage
in selling cases of the bright rosé
all over the country.
I’d be lying if I said I didn’t love
the bottle — the design is beauti-
ful and is the perfect addition
or centerpiece to any summer
event. But in the taste and fla-
vor department, it isn’t a winner
for me. What Summer in a Bottle
does, gracefully and successfully,
is mask the relatively tough and
uncomplex flavor of the rosé with
an incredible marketing ploy and
a perfect front cover when what’s
inside the bottle simply doesn’t
match such facial excellence.
In spite of any criticism,
Summer in a Bottle flies off the
shelves, even when it costs you
over 30 dollars, which is an over-
priced bill for an almost flavor-
less bottle. The reason being it
looks the part. We’re so geared
toward the digital in this tech-
nological age. With all the affir-
mation we gain from Instagram
likes, we’re willing to sacrifice
flavor for looks almost immedi-
ately — forgetting the purpose of
rosé in the first place. The wine,
like so many Italian food and bev-
erage staples, is about culture.
Rosé all day this summer
ELI RALLO
Daily Arts Writer
COMMUNITY CULTURE NOTEBOOK
LIBRESHOT
Opening on a gluttonous helping
of piercing, Prodigy-indebted synth
and a battery of steel-toed boots (the
house down), Donatella Versace’s
message at the Versace Menswear
Spring 2020 show was both com-
posite and staggeringly clear. She
sent her usual gaggle of unassailable
superbeings down the halls of their
Via Gesù showroom to reassert her
expansive and heavily branded uni-
verse’s
influence
on modern culture.
Lurex
flare-
pants,
oversized
PVC suiting, rhine-
stone Greek border
chokers, glittering
race car embroi-
dering,
grom-
meted leather, the
aforementioned
calf-high
clomp-
ers and seemingly
endless Medusan
adornments
are
just the tip of the
Milanese iceberg,
nearly all of which
was somehow fea-
tured in the show.
Neon buzzcuts and flat-ironed manes
raced down a pink, plexiglass runway
and around the glossy black body of
a 1995 Corvette, swathed in a pile of
matching roses, peonies and orchids,
glacially spinning as a GIF would in
the early days of the internet.
Visual hallmarks of the 1990s
have been present, often in the form
of direct regurgitation, in nostalgic
digital art as well as trends and points
of reference in the fashion industry
for some time now. Versace’s visual
legacy of elevating the gaudy and gar-
ish is cemented within almost every
creative field that comes to mind, and
it’s clearly come time to cash in.
Disparate elements of the Versace
canon clash and clamor for attention
yet manage to coincide with bal-
ance thanks to a shared design ethos
(pure maximalism) and a masterful
fusion of the two defining elements
of the show. First is the overwhelm-
ing presence of Versace’s branding
in all forms of art that fall under the
umbrella of “Tumblr.” The most fit-
ting example of the vague, amalgam-
ated genre is Vaporwave, the Petra
Cortright and early-aughts gamer-
inspired atmosphere that playfully
pokes at corporate identity and often
features the pink and purple hues
present in this year’s show.
The second source of inspiration
is modern masculinity’s relationship
to the tropes that continue to define
it. Describing the collection’s archi-
tecture on their YouTube channel,
the brand asserts that “Stereotypes of
masculine character are challenged
through tailoring, fabric and print —
an interpretation of
confidence through
Versace’s maximal-
ist style,” and that
“The Versace man is
free to self-express
with no limitations.”
It is evident that Ver-
sace not only seeks to
challenge masculin-
ity, including about
as many women in
the show as men and
pairing emblems of
virility with color
palettes and style
elements that cue
the unmasculine; it
mobilizes the irony
and playfulness of
those now defunct, yet massively
influential art forms to inspire the
same attitude toward the modes of
social enforcement that attempt to
dictate what brings us joy, how we
view ourselves and how we present
ourselves to others.
Versace is so ubiquitous that it
doesn’t need to go out of its way to
sell itself as a brand or try to invent
something new. The groundwork
has already been laid for that — the
brand literally spawned Google
Images. Much like Chanel and other
labels of its stature, the house shines
brightest when it finds new worlds
to merge with and integrates estab-
lished designs. In doing so, they’re
taking every aspect of what they have
come to be known for, a decade that
they have become synonymous with,
a creative movement that more or less
owes its whole self to both, synthesiz-
ing a politics and communicating it
clearly, which is about as much as
anyone could ask for.
Glitch-art fuels
new Versace line
SAM KREMKE
Daily Arts Writer
STYLE NOTEBOOK
Read more at michigandaily.com
Versace is so
ubiquitous that
it doesn’t need
to go out of
its way to sell
itself as a brand
or try to invent
something new.