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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.

