It’s a truth universally acknowledged in tasting rooms and patios alike: rosé is a wine that makes people smile.

More than just a summer sipper.

There’s a reason for that. It’s easy to love. Rosé doesn’t ask much of you, just pop the cork, pour it cold, and bask in the moment. But herein lies the danger: too often its charm is mistaken for a lack of depth. Rosé has become the wine equivalent of a vacation fling, flirted with in summer and often abandoned by fall.

We’d like to argue for something radical: rosé deserves to be taken seriously. Not in a nose-in-the-air, decant-it-for-two-hours kind of way. But seriously, as in worthy of attention, worthy of respect. And above all, worthy of being part of the year-round conversation in wine.

Let’s get the obvious out of the way: rosé has a branding problem. For years, it was pigeonholed as either cheap and sweet (think the White Zinfandel boom of the 1980s) or as a “girls’ night” wine: quaffable, cute, and Instagrammable.

Some of the Rosé wines we ‘researched’.

Neither image did it any favours in the eyes of wine critics or self-styled connoisseurs. The backlash was inevitable.

I remember being at a local wine shop one Spring, watching a couple loudly declare that they only drank “serious reds.” They rolled their eyes at the shelf of rosé bottles, their pale hues shimmering in the light like pink quartz. I wanted to ask: have you ever tasted a Tavel? A Bandol? A skin-contact rosé from volcanic Sicilian soil? Because if you have, and you still think pink equals weak, I’d gently suggest your palate might need some re-education.

First, let’s clear up a misconception: rosé is not made by mixing red and white wine.

Billecart-Salmon Rosé Champagne.

Okay, technically it can be, and Champagne producers are allowed to do this, but that’s the exception, not the rule.

Most rosé is crafted by allowing the juice of red grapes to macerate on their skins for a short period (anywhere from a few hours to a day) before being pressed off and fermented like a white wine.

That limited skin contact is where the magic happens. Rosé walks a tightrope of enough extraction to lend colour and character, but not so much that it becomes a light red. The winemaker must pay close attention, and the margin for error is slim. It’s a delicate, deliberate process, and in the right hands, a revelatory one.

Let’s talk about those right hands. More and more winemakers, particularly in regions like Provence, the Willamette Valley and the Okanagan Valley, are taking rosé seriously, not as an afterthought or cash-flow wine, but as a focal point of their craft.

More winemakers are growing grapes specifically for rosé.

Some use saignée (the “bleeding” method), pulling off juice from red wine fermentations to concentrate their reds. Others grow and harvest grapes specifically for rosé, picking earlier for freshness and acidity.

Then there’s Bandol. This sun-drenched corner of Provence doesn’t produce your typical whisper-pink wine. Here, Mourvèdre leads the blend, bringing heft, spice, and serious aging potential. We’ve had Bandol rosés with a decade of age that are copper-hued, savoury, and almost meaty in profile. They pair better with duck breast than beach towels.

The notion that rosé is only for summer is as outdated as saying red wine can’t go with fish. Sure, there’s something joyful about sipping it under a July sun. But the best rosés have structure and complexity that hold up in cooler months.

Not just for summer.

Fall is when we crave a Grenache-based rosé from Spain with roasted vegetables. In winter, we might reach for deeper-hued rosés from Italy. Having recently discovered Cerasuolo d’Abruzzo with its notes of sour cherry and balsamic, we expect it could be terrific with braised meats.

And Spring? The season for onion tart and a Loire rosé made from Cabernet Franc, with its flinty backbone and savoury green notes.

What’s undeniable about Rosé is its versatility. It fills the gap between white and red, effortlessly matching a cheese board, a Thanksgiving spread, or a casual Tuesday night stir-fry. It’s the Swiss Army knife of the wine world, and we ignore it at our peril.

The 2017 Skinner Rosé.

When we asked a winemaker once why she puts so much effort into her rosé program, her answer was simple: “Because it’s the wine I drink the most myself.” She told us about the challenges of fermenting at lower temperatures, managing volatile acidity, and getting the balance right between fruit and acid.

“People think rosé is easy,” she said. “But it’s not. It just tastes easy. That’s the brilliance of it.”

She’s right. Rosé, when done well, is the ultimate sleight of hand: effortless elegance born from painstaking choices.

We’re not here to tell you to stop enjoying rosé on a patio. Please, by all means, pour that glass, tilt your face to the sun, and soak it in. There’s something wonderful about how rosé connects us to joy, to leisure, to the lighthearted moments that punctuate the harder ones.

Garnet Valley Ranch rosé, delightful and deliberate.

But let’s not mistake lightness for lack. Rosé can be both delightful and deliberate. It can speak of terroir, vintage, and intent. It can age, it can pair, and it can matter. And perhaps most importantly, it doesn’t need to prove itself to anyone.

As wine writers, we’ve tasted first-growth Bordeaux and Burgundies that moved us to near-tears. But we’ve also had rosés that surprised us in the best way. They reminded us that wine isn’t just about complexity; it’s about connection and rosé does that brilliantly.

So let’s retire the wine stereotypes. Let’s stop treating rosé like a seasonal accessory and start treating it like the serious wine it can be. Or don’t. Just pour it and enjoy it. But maybe, just maybe, raise your glass with a little more reverence.

Because behind that pink façade, there’s a world of nuance waiting to be discovered. And that’s something worth sipping on…no matter the season.