the skinny on her favorite budget bubblies, complete with delectable culinary pairings. There's Now an Official #RoséAllDay Brand of Wine An Ode to Rosé Rose Gold Glitter Prosecco Is The Summery Drink Everyone Is Obsessed With Yes, Soon You'll Be Able to Buy a Bottle of Blue Wine The Audacity of Starbucks' Unicorn Frappuccino Is Astounding Ceviche, Beaches, and Machu Pichu with Paperless Post cofounder Alexa Hirschfeld Now Even Pineapples Come in Millennial Pink Drinking Wine Is Actually Great for Your Brain, According to Science You Can Drink Your Rosé Out Of A Forty This Summer Queen Elizabeth Travels With Cake at All TimesNot so long ago, the stereotype of California rosés included all the characteristics you would never want in a pink wine: heaviness, sweetness, high alcohol.To be clear, these problems are not limited to rosés from California. And even within the state, exceptions could easily be cited. Just to name two: For more than a few years now, Edmunds St. John has been making a wonderful wine out of gamay grapes that fulfills rosé's prime directive, to invigorate, refresh and revive, while Heitz Cellars has been making a similarly lithe rosé out of grignolino since the 1960s.

Nonetheless, I found enough truth in the stereotype that California rosés were often among the last wines I would have considered pouring in the heat of summer, when the panting for rosé reaches its peak. Now, though, those outliers are gaining company. Many California producers have emphasized restraint, subtlety and freshness in their reds and whites in the last few years, doing much to restore a diversity of styles to a state pigeonholed for its sumptuous power wines. They have turned their attention to rosés as well, and are expanding the notion of what California rosés can achieve. This was borne out in a recent tasting of 20 California rosés from the 2013 vintage, in which the wine panel found much to like. For the tasting, Florence Fabricant and I were joined by two guests, Mia Van de Water, the wine director at North End Grill in Battery Park City, and Jerusha Frost, a sommelier at Bar Boulud and Boulud Sud on the Upper West Side. All of us were impressed by the rosés that made our top 10.

For one thing, they were blessedly dry. I have nothing against the idea of sweetness in white wines, when the fermentation is halted before yeast can complete the task of transforming grape sugar into alcohol. Good whites with residual sweetness, whether spätlese Mosel riesling or demi-sec Vouvray, for example, are so cunningly balanced that they are keenly refreshing as well.But sweet rosés rarely offer that knife-edge thrill. Too often, they are heavy and fatiguing, the sort of wines you have to keep as cold as possible to cover up their clumsiness. Those weaned on the white zinfandels of the 1980s may well recall these sorts of wines with modest embarrassment, as even older wine drinkers may remember sweet Rosé d’Anjous. I’m happy to say that cutting-edge producers are reinventing both of these tired categories.It’s a longtime cliché of the wine industry that Americans talk dry but drink sweet, and for years many California producers tailored their rosés to satisfy this appetite for sweet, fruity wines.

But as American wine consumers have matured, a growing portion of the market appreciates wines that are more austere and nuanced. dry red wine imagesOur top rosés will appeal to those palates.dry red wine goes with Perhaps some of the producers may have even pushed too far. best deal port wineYou close your eyes and you think you’re drinking white wine,” she said. best wine to go with japanese food“I want some fruit in my rosé.”wine is the best medicine I had no doubt the fruit was there, but it was subtle, just as it would be in Provençal rosés. best wine with turkey roast

That was the beauty of these wines, in my opinion. One thing we all agreed on: You could not tell much from the color of these wines. buy wine in chinaThey varied from the palest of onion skins through the range of salmon shades to jewel-like garnets and rubies, yet we found little connection between potency of color and impact of fruit.what is best port wineThe assortment of colors may have been due in part to the wide array of grapes from which these rosés were made. best wine prices in houstonPinot noir and gamay; grenache, mourvèdre, syrah, cinsault, counoise and carignan, blended in one combination or another; nebbiolo, even grignolino, courtesy of the venerable Heitz rosé, which made our list at No. 6. Heitz makes a delicious red of grignolino, though the wine is barely dark enough to warrant the term red.

Paradoxically, its grignolino rosé was among the darkest wines in our group.The alcohol levels of these wines was quite low, generally ranging from 11 percent to 13 percent, though our No. 3 bottle, the lively, harmonious Patelin de Tablas from Tablas Creek in Paso Robles, was about 14 percent, perhaps a bit high for a summer lunch. By contrast, the vibrant Matthiasson rosé, No. 4 — made substantially of the same combination of southern Rhône grapes as the Tablas Creek, though with a lower percentage of grenache — was around 11.5 percent. This was a guzzler, a wine I could see drinking joyously beachside. Our No. 1 wine, the County Line rosé from Elk Home Ranch in the Anderson Valley of Mendocino, was made entirely of pinot noir. It was barely tinged with rouge, yet was steely, textured and refreshing, a rosé that I felt I could drink year-round. County Line, by the way, is made by Eric Sussman, whose other label, Radio Coteau, produces excellent reds and whites but no rosés.

Another pinot noir from Robert Sinskey, our No. 9 bottle, was pleasantly juicy with fresh fruit flavors and a touch of effervescence. The relatively venerable Bone-Jolly, Edmunds St. John’s gamay rosé from Eldorado County, has been a favorite of mine for a while. It was tangy and tart, and was No. 2 in our blind tasting. It was also our best value at $20.Other noteworthy wines included Wind Gap’s steely, succulent North Coast rosé, made of nebbiolo, syrah and grenache; Lioco’s aromatic Indica rosé from Mendocino, made of carignan; Liquid Farm’s tart, fresh rosé from Happy Canyon in Santa Barbara, made almost entirely from mourvèdre; and Dragonette’s almost austere rosé, also from Happy Canyon, a blend of mourvèdre, grenache and syrah. Other producers worth mentioning, though their rosés did not make our top 10, include Forlorn Hope, Vallin and Bedrock. None of these are profound wines. Few, if any, rosés are. Rosé is meant to be festive and uplifting, not contemplative, and most of the rosés we tasted succeeded in this mission.

Too many rosés — worldwide, not just from California — are made cynically, blueprinted and manufactured to appeal to an audience buying a color, not a wine. Here, though, you have honest rosés meant to appeal to wine lovers rather than followers of fashion.Tasting ReportCounty Line Rosé Anderson Valley Elk Home Ranch 2013 ★★★Onion-skin color, crisp, steely and utterly refreshing, with great texture and subtle fruit flavors. BEST VALUE: Edmunds St. John Eldorado County Witters Vineyard Bone-Jolly Gamay Noir Rosé 2013 ★★ 1/2Pale salmon color, with tangy, juicy flavors ending in a welcome tart sensation. $20Tablas Creek Paso Robles Patelin de Tablas Rosé 2013 ★★ 1/2 Salmon color, lively and harmonious, with suggestive flavors of red fruits, herbs and licorice. $22Matthiasson California Rosé 2013 ★★ 1/2 Salmon color, vibrant and lip-smacking, with aromas of flowers and red fruits. $20Wind Gap North Coast Rosé 2013 ★★ 1/2Pale garnet, succulent, with steely, high-toned flavors of red fruit.