The Best New Modern Wine Fridge

Whether you’re a serious wine collector or a casual hobbyist, wine fridges offer a controlled environment to help age your wine properly and prolong a bottle’s lifespan. They come in a range of sizes and styles and have different cooling options based on your varietal preferences. 

However, as Food & Wine’s Assistant Wine Editor and Senior Commerce Editor, we recently found ourselves chatting about the same problem: We couldn’t find a wine fridge that we actually liked enough to proudly display in our already-small apartments. As urbanites (New York City and Chicago, specifically), space is limited, and aesthetics are paramount. We both searched high and low for one that fit the bill of form and function, but none had piqued our interest. Then we stumbled on this new launch. 

Rocco The Super Smart Fridge

Enter: the Super Smart Fridge from Rocco, a new modular, modern wine fridge that promised to perform as well as it looks. So when we were offered the opportunity to test out this ultra-cool (albeit, ultra-hyped) new fridge, we obliged. 

And dare we say it: This thing is sexy. The Rocco not only checks the boxes of a quality fridge that fits a decent amount of bottles, but it’s become a talking piece for every guest who enters either of our spaces. We’ve both had the fridge for a few weeks now, and the feedback has been the same. Each time new visitors enter our home, they collectively say, “What is that?”

The fridge is available in white, yellow, and graphite, and offers dual-zone cooling, so you can customize your temperature preference based on the types of wine (or drinks) you’re storing. It is 35 inches tall and 24 inches wide, making it ideal for compact spaces, and fits snugly against our walls. And with its non-traditional good looks, it also doubles as a bar cart. 

Beyond just what meets the eye, Rocco has revolutionized every detail of the wine fridge. Most notably, it has optimized the most frustrating part of ordering a new appliance: assembly. Instructions are clearly printed on the outside of the box — in fact, there’s no real need to even open the manual. Unpacking and setting up the fridge takes ten minutes max, and having two sets of hands makes things a bit easier — box included, the fridge weighs about 150 pounds, so white glove delivery is recommended if you’re dealing with stairs. 

Behind the ultra-chic reeded glass door (which also protects the contents inside from UV light) are six drawers that comfortably hold both wine bottles and cans. This is truly a beverage fridge for the modern consumer who wants a variety of drinks chilled and at the ready. 

While more slender bottles typically used for Bordeaux or Riesling that are around three inches in diameter fit the most comfortably, we were able to accommodate chunkier wine bottles with some effort. By removing and flipping over the flat wire rack drawer bases, extra-wide Champagne bottles fit snugly in the fridge. If you’re an avid Burgundy collector, we’d recommend a more traditional wine fridge made for wider bottles. The drawer heights do range, so be strategic about where you store narrow cans or beer bottles versus wine to get the most out of the space.

As for chilling wine and other beverages, the Rocco works great. The dual-zone cooling system allows for long-term wine storage at around 55°F in one section and a cooler temperature for ready-to-drink products in the other — the fridge goes all the way down to 37°F. 

While there are certainly less expensive alternatives on the market that will adequately chill your bottles and cans, what we love about The Super Smart Fridge is its versatility. We’ve leaned on its warm interior lighting to form a moody glow at parties, piled its flat top with liquor bottles and decor as an additional table surface, and filled its drawers with a little bit of everything — there are so many good things to drink these days, so why choose? 

Sure, this fridge has had plenty of hype, and you may have already scrolled past it a few times on your own Instagram feed, but if style is as important as function to you, this may just be the solution to your wine fridge woes as well.

At the time of publishing, the price was $1,295.