1. Rosés go with everything. The next time you're out to eat, order any glass of rosé. Enjoy the first few heavenly sips. Then open the menu, close your eyes and point to a dish -- any dish. When it arrives, taste it and then take a swig of the aforementioned heavenly rosé and color yourself convinced. These wines are unbelievably great with everything from olives to offal, charcuterie to crab cakes, pork chops to paella. They possess all the flirtatious qualities of a white wine, balanced by the manliness of a red. That's why they can work with practically every course, in any cuisine. The only way to go wrong in terms of a rosé wine pairing is to drink so much of it that you actually forget to order some food.
2. There's one for every palate. So many people blow off rosés as being too fruity and delicate for their liking: Have you ever tried a lusty rosé Bordeaux, or a complex monastrell-based rosé from the Jumilla region of Spain? The key to debunking this myth is to recognize that rosés are not so much one particular type of wine as they are a particular style of winemaking. That is, any red wine grape can be made in a rosé style, simply by leaving the skins in contact with the wines for less time than if the wine were to be made into a traditional red. So the heartier the grape varietal, the heartier the rosé-style wine made from that grape will be. If you typically gravitate toward big, full-throated reds, just look for rosés made from those same grapes and prepare to be delighted.
3. Price is no object. And by that, I mean that you won't need to spend much money to drink some of the very best rosés around. Refuse to pay more than $10 retail for a bottle of wine? Not a problem - which is something you don't hear a wine professional say very often. With Spain and France, not to mention Washington State and Australia making delicious and inexpensive rosés by the caseload, finding a bottle to fall in love with for less money than you spent on lattes this week is infinitely doable.
4. They're just plain fun to drink. Maybe it's the myriad color manifestations swirling in a glass of rosé - every shade of pink on the spectrum from blush to fuchsia. Or it might be the heady set of fragrances you're liable to inhale -- ripe strawberry, candied raspberry, or even cucumber. Just pulling a bottle of pink wine out of the 'fridge is sure to kick off a lively debate (real men do drink pink wine, just so you know). Whatever the case, these wines up the fun factor every time you drink them.
