I’ve been told that one knows when Summer’s here when one “hear[s] the first bottle of rosé popping.” At least, I’ve now been told that after having attended Pinknic, a picnic on New York’s Governor’s Island, whose overarching theme is rosé wine. Rosé wine isn’t included in its $65 admission fee, though; that’ll merely get you a spot in the presence of some rosé wine, along with innocuously mediocre indie rock bands you’ve never heard, playing to a mass of people sitting on rosé colored blankets. Pinknic, launched by wine entrepreneur Pierrick Bouquet and Derek van Bakergem, is a hyper-banalized example of how the act of simply putting a price tag on something that seems a given — open space — and therein privatizing it is enough to bring thousands of people to a random field on a Saturday.
Perhaps a timeline of how we got to peak-rosé, on the website for luxury design website The O Group, says it all:
Enter: Pierrick Bouquet. You know when you have that moment of “why didn’t I think of that?” This guy symbolizes everything about that statement. What do millennials love more than drinking rosé? The answer is drinking rosé in the presence of yachts, picnics and music festivals.
In Pinknic’s admission price, it is the most basic human activity — sitting atop a patch of grass — that’s the main commodity being peddled. (The only thing that comes with admission is a pink blanket.) At this decidedly upper middle class outing, attendees seemed to strive subconsciously for a restoration of the casually lavish origins of picnicking — evoked by George Seraute, and famously by impressionists like Manet, Monet and Renoir as a luxurious idyll, imbuing Western society with indelibly romantic, wealth-connoting ideas of picnics past. (The main concession to 2016 is the accompanying variety of selfie-ops.) From where I was sitting — near the fence in the back — I could see, just feet away, another un-pricetagged grassy knoll. Nothing separated that knoll from my knoll except a brand and a price that suddenly transformed my knoll from a place on which one might picnic to a place on which one might Pinknic.
Pinknic posits itself, inherently and in its branding, as a getaway — the “island” location (despite most of NYC being located on different archipelagic islands) seems key in justifying the price and to creating an air of exclusivity. In order to get to Governor’s Island, one must take a ferry, and on each boat, hundreds of rosé bros and women bedecked in their finest whites and pinks (adhering to the recommended dress code of a summer wine-colored palette that also happens to be evocative of lox and schmear) careened on a grey Saturday towards the fenced area in which Moët Chandon and “chewy and mouthwatering” Chateau d’Esclans Whispering Angel — provided to members of the press — were sold. If one had the foresight, they could have preordered “Pinknic Baskets” — also provided to press — by Chris Santos of Stanton Social and Beauty & Essex, for an additional $65-$80.
From the dock, there was a walk across Governor’s Island, a walk that incidentally takes you through New York history (once Lenape land, then stuffed with Revolutionary War era earthworks, the imposing Castle Williams, used in the war of 1812 that also held captured Confederates in the Civil War, then the landfill that makes up the conic bottom of the island, then “the hills,” a cluster of attractive manmade lumps being installed in the park by Dutch architecture firm West 8) to get to the present, rosé-isolationist destination. People with VIP passes were carted there, alongside the walkers, in tiny pink vehicles sponsored by Bermuda (the place); the march was long, inciting thirst as people approached darkening skies and pinkening cups. Once within the enclosure, the activities were somewhat limited: the one stage was far removed from many of the Pinknickers, the music mostly providing atmospheric accenting, though when I neared the stage area, a few of the younger people in the crowd had peeled themselves from their pink grass-condoms to watch this man (and his band, Miami Horror) perform:
Some who took little interest in watching Miami Horror perform quickly tired of the simple act of sipping and nibbling atop pink fabric and got creative:
Traversing the salmon sea, I spoke with some fellow Pinknickers about their thoughts on the event, and the impetuses for their attendance. The crowd was made up predominantly of people in their late 20s and 30s, and though it was more ethnically diverse than many music festivals, it was a mostly middle to upper middle class affair. Pinknic seems to have earned its targeted demographic. (“If your company’s product resonates especially with an audience of predominately affluent consumers between the ages of 26 and 35,” the event’s website urged you to to become a sponsor.)
From the people I asked, most declared that despite the $65 neither getting them food nor wine — but rather only space in a plot of land filled with other people dressed in pink who’d paid $65 to dress in pink on this plot of land — it was all still definitely worth it. Why? “I’m a Coachella girl, anything with music and rosé.” “Day drinking.” “All in one package.” Far more than being rosé connoisseurs, it seemed people mostly just wanted to be with their friends in an open space that just so happened to be heightened by the summery/refreshing connotations of the rosé brand. One man had bought tickets for a rosé cruise the year prior and missed it; he laid on a blanket next to me, soaking up whatever scant light a skeptical Dionysus dared shine on this event. The exception was one British woman who, despite still enjoying herself, pointed to the aforementioned patch of green just beyond the fence and noted that she could have easily sat there for free.
In Robert Goldman’s essay “We Make Weekends: Leisure and the Commodity Form” in Duke University Press, the author examines how consumerism was fueled by businessmen banking on the sudden plummeting of the average workweek from 60 hours in the 19th century to 30+ in the 20th, and on the need to capitalize from peoples’ leisure time. “Packaged for individualistic purchase, the spectacle offered structured passivity, a passivity that resonated with changes taking place in the sphere of production,” Goldman writes. “With the emergence of the corporate economy, it was increasingly taken for granted that leisure was something to be bought, that ‘free time’ was a space that needed to be filled with things and images of things.” In Pinknic, it also turns out that ‘free space’ — via the traditionally free leisure activity of a picnic — is something that needs to be filled with things. The very act of being in that space around things is apparently worth $65, not to mention what the actual things cost.
In 2014, “U.S. retail sales of premium imported rosé wines (those priced at or above $12 a bottle) grew by 41 percent on volume and 53 percent on value,” reported Chloe Wyma (full disclosure: my likewise rosé-culture-fascinated friend, with whom I attended the event) in GQ last year. With various media outlets having declared this the era of rosé, Pinknic has capitalized on the salmon aesthetic and brand connotations — warm weather! newly trending! fun and not so serious, yet you’ve gotta have some money to get the good stuff! — without actually even including the product in its steep admission price. Rather, it’s placed everything “rosé” has come to signify culturally atop something as free and neutral as open, green space, and presumably made a ton of green by splattering it with pink.