I am a spinach-pie fanatic. Doesn't matter if it's the Greek phyllo variety or the folded-dough Middle Eastern sort; there is no food more perfect in my mind. And just recently, I had a spinach-pie-and-wine pairing epiphany that makes the ultimate even better.

My neighborhood Middle Eastern place, Zaytoons, is BYOB and happily just down the road the from another local fave, Smith & Vine, my go-to wine shop for stuff from excellent small producers world-over. Last week, over the aforementioned spinach pie, my boyfriend Michael surprised me with a bottle of fizzy rosé called Moussamoussettes from one of my favorite Loire producers, Agnès et René Mosse. I'd never seen this wine before, probably because they don't make much of it and it's nearly impossible to find, but it was incredible, with juicy strawberry flavor and an intriguing fennel note. Sparkling wines tend to go really well with salty foods, and this was excellent with the feta-filled spinach pie; the fruitiness was great with the spices, like za'atar, as well.  

I sadly won't be able to get my hands on a bottle of Moussamoussettes every time I eat spinach pie, but there are plenty of other sparkling rosés that will go equally as well. Here are a few to try:

2006 Llopart Rosé Cava (about $17, find this wine) This rather rich cava from Spain is excellent year after year. This vintage has a pretty floral aroma and an unmistakable burst of cherry fruit.

NV Riondo Raboso Pink Prosecco (about $10, find this wine) Pale pink with some herbal notes, this delicately frizzante prosecco from Italy's Veneto region is a steal.

NV Domaine Chandon Rosé ($22, find this wine) This juicy rosé from one of California's top sparkling wine producers is loaded with ripe red-berry fruit.

I had a good time appearing on Today this morning, recommending wines for their "Made in America" Friday whip segment. (On the whip they run through four or so variations on a topic in a speedy way.) In this case "made in America" meant not made in California—which was a great chance to highlight some of the other great wine regions in the country. I brought along:

• The NV Domaine Ste. Michelle Blanc de Blancs ($12), a nice, creamy and fairly full-bodied sparkler from Washington State

• The 2008 A to Z Wineworks Rosé ($12), a fragrant dry rosé from Oregon made with (oddly enough) Sangiovese grapes

• A terrific, crisp, Kabinett-style Riesling from the Finger Lakes, the 2007 Hermann J. Wiemer Vineyard Dry Riesling ($17), which will also age beautifully if given the chance

• And one of my favorite Texan wines, the 2006 Flat Creek Estate SuperTexan ($19), a juicy, robust Sangiovese blend that I first ran into while touring around the Hill Country with my father, doing some barbecue research.

Plus, I got to see Al Roker sing part of "Don't Cry for Me, Argentina" from on top of a crane, which was definitely the sort of experience you don't get every day.

There's no particular theme to this last-minute grab bag of good, inexpensive wines, though I was flipping through my notes and I did come across this comment from wine importer Bart Broadbent: "Wines are like people. If they please everyone, they're bland." This was said in the context of a tasting of Chateau Musar's unquestionably un-bland wines, but it's good food for thought regardless.

Anyway. I don't think that the 2006 Feudi di San Marzano Sud Negroamaro ($12) from Puglia would necessarily please everyone—it's too luscious and dark-fruited for folks who like their reds lean and angular—but it would certainly please a lot of people with its cassis and blackberry fruit. And no, it isn't bland.

Even less bland is the impressive 2006 Domaine de la Petite Cassagne Rouge ($15) a juicy, lightly funky red with black plum fruit and prickly tannins that wake up your tongue. It's a blend of Grenache, Syrah and Carignane from the Costières-de-Nimes, and it's a steal.

Once your tongue is awake, you could keep it that way by drinking some 2007 Rocky Gully Shiraz-Viognier ($14), which proves that not all inexpensive Aussie Shiraz tastes like blackberry jam. This one is lighter than the usual run, with bright fruit and evocative peppery notes in both the aroma and the taste. Stunning with seared kangaroo kidneys, or what have you.

If you're after rosé—which, yes, can still be drunk without hesitation despite the season—the 2007 Jean-Luc Colombo Rosé de Côte Bleue ($13) has a pretty raspberry-strawberry character and good texture. It's still drinking just fine. And if you put it outside for twenty minutes, it'll be exactly the right temperature.

Since I'm in the Bay Area for our annual American Wine Awards event, I took the opportunity to head over to the East Bay and grab lunch at the Chez Panisse's Café. Seemed like a good idea, since I haven't been there in thirteen years and, after all, it's Chez Panisse.

Something about the dark, wood-beamed, stained-glass space made me feel rather as though I were having lunch inside a particularly well appointed Hobbit hole—go figure—but the kitchen still has that ability to turn out mundane-sounding dishes like "avocado and beet salad with citrus vinaigrette" that pretty much blow you away, simply because of the quality of the ingredients. The same was true of the aïoli served with a perfectly cooked (and very flavorful) piece of Northern halibut—the garlickiness of the aïoli had the subtle, perfumed character of fresh farmer's market garlic rather than the hoary pungent heads of the stuff, imported from God knows where in China, that lately have been turning up at grocery stores near me.

Anyway, the point is that the wine I had to go with all this, a 2007 Domaine Tempier Bandol Rosé ($35), is a wine to put to rest any comments that rosé can't be serious stuff. It was luscious, not in a fat, overripe, fruit-jam way, but in a tongue-caressing, silky, substantial-for-a-rosé way. Great strawberry and raspberry fruit notes, but what impressed me most was the texture, which was just plain seductive. Kermit Lynch imports it, and it certainly isn't cheap (especially for a rose), it's still more than worth picking up.

In classic form, I stated that the results of my rosé tasting would be posted yesterday; of course, I am only getting to them today. But the world does seem to be spinning on its axis, so evidently promptness wasn't all that important.

In any case, I tasted through twenty-odd rosés today in the always-pleasant-to-be-in F&W Tasting Room, and came out of it feeling a few things. First, southern France still rules when it comes to pink wine. Not that there aren't good rosés from other places, but the Languedoc, Provence, Saumur, etc. always seem to come out tops whenever I do a survey tasting like this. Two, when rosé is bad, it's really depressing. There's nothing worse than a cheerful, fun wine that's actively unpleasant (for instance, odors of canned corn or flavors recalling watermelon Jolly Ranchers). Three, old rosé—with the exception of Lopez de Heredia's truly unusual bottling, which is released so old that it's sort of fascinating & wonderful—is a mistake. Buy the current vintage, or be prepared for the world of canned-corn-watermelon-candy-yech.

So, with that in mind, here are the winners of the bunch:

2006 Prieuré de Montezargues Tavel ($20) Scents of cherries and strawberries, a slightly prickly, just this side of petillant texture, and lots of flavor. Lovely Tavel. Makes me wish I had a boat to drink it on.

2006 Langlois-Château "La Bretonniére" Cabernet de Saumur ($18) Langlois-Château—which makes very good Loire sparkling wine—is owned by Bollinger, the rather grand Champagne company. I haven't had many Cabernet Franc rosés, but evidently sparkling-winemakers know what to do with it: make a charming rosé with light red currant and cherry notes and a touch of tannin. 

2006 SoloRosa Syrah Rosé ($28) Big, luscious but balanced rosé made with fruit from Saralee's Vineyard in the Russian River Valley. Abundant cherry fruit kept alive by the orangey acidity. Sort of a main-course rosé—I'd happily drink this with a pork chop, or somesuch. Pretty dern pricey, though.

2006 Fortitude Rosé ($14) You sort of have to love this if only because it's primarily made from Valdiguié, which, according to the Oxford Companion to Wine, "enjoyed its finest hour in the late 19th century." Poor Valdiguié; nevertheless, this is a nice comeback: a little watermelon in the aroma, a lot of raspberry and some citrus in the flavor.

And all of these would be just fine with a tasty corn salad. 

There's an engaging thread today on Eric Asimov's blog, The Pour, at the Times, regarding rosé—worthwhile, not worthwhile, delicious, foul, etc. Many opinions are expressed. For my part I agree there's a lot of insipid rosé in the world (if you start with insipid red wine, bleed some off, and bottle it as rosé, guess what—insipid rosé!) However, there are some wonderful pink wines floating around out there, too. And I think part of their appeal is that they don't attract attention. It's perhaps the ur-complement wine, by which I mean that its role is to make something else—food, a spring day, your date, your dog, whatever—seem more appealing somehow. (Of course, my dog when I was growing up, Bandit, had a terrible eczemic skin condition that caused all the hair to fall out of his back; because the skin was gray and wrinkly, he looked sort of like a half dog-half armadillo. All the rosé in Provence couldn't have made him attractive for a second, the poor guy.)

Anyway. What I suggest you do with rosé, rather than analyze it deeply, is serve it with what I'll call my Wing-It Corn Salad, with apologies to NY wine man-about-town Tony DiDio, whose sublime corn salad is the inspiration for this more off-the-cuff version. It's simple; also, it tastes great. Take about five ears of sweet summer corn. Shave off all the kernels with a sharp knife. Melt a knob of butter (Nigel Slater's always referring to knobs of butter, and I believe in ol' Nigel*) over medium heat, add the corn and cook for a few minutes, splash in some white wine (about a quarter cup), sauté a few more moments (aiming for that ideal tender-crisp state), then cut the heat and toss the corn with some chopped basil, scallions and/or chives, and tomatoes. Proportion-wise, you basically want the finished product to look like corn with stuff in it, rather than stuff with corn in it. Season with salt and pepper. Eat. If you find it needs a little tartness, a dash of red wine vinegar will work; even better is purslane from the farmer's market—it adds a nice lemony edge (thank you, Tony DiDio). And if you want to open up a bottle of rosé while you cook, well, go right ahead. I guarantee that the kitchen gods will not smite you in anger.

I'm going to be tasting a bunch of rosés tomorrow, and will report back on the best.

*After consultation with Marcia Kiesel, F&W's brilliant test kitchen director, I can report back that our official F&W interpretation of "a knob" is "a good tablespoon or so". Marcia also noted that she has an old cookbook with a recipe for chocolate cake that calls for "butter the size of two eggs," which we both agreed is a pretty great way of describing an amount of butter.

There's a general air in NYC today that could be roughly summed up as, "Thank God. Spring. Finally!" The sun is out, it's breezy, and if I weren't sitting here in an office typing these words, I'd be sitting out in a park somewhere—and if the world were truly ideal, I'd be eating one of the crisp Niçoise chickpea pancakes called socca, and drinking a glass of one of these two rosés:

2006 Domaine Houchart Côtes de Provence Rosé ($10) Fresh, delicate and full of flavor, this blend of Grenache, Syrah, Cinsault, Cabernet Sauvignon, Mourvèdre and unspecified "other varietals" is exactly what rosé should be. A little watermelon; a little frais de bois; a whole lot of charm.

2006 Bieler Père et Fils Coteaux d'Aix-en-Provence Rosé ($10) A blend of 70% Syrah and 30% Grenache, this is unsurprisingly a bit richer and lustier than the Houchart, with the scent and taste of ripe strawberries and a touch of anise on the finish. More of a cold roast chicken rosé, in other words—which also sounds like a mighty fine thing. (no website as yet)

On Sunday morning I did a segment on the weekend Today show about pairing wines with food (if they ever create a link to the video, I'll post it here). I finished my four-and-a-half minutes with a dry rosé—the 2005 Chateau d'Aqueria ($18) from Tavel—making the entirely defendable claim that rosé is one of the great, if not the great, all-purpose pairing wine. Goes with meat, goes with fish, goes with veggies, goes with Hostess Ding Dongs (well, no; in fact, for those you need a bota bag of Screaming Eagle). Anyway, you get the idea. Rosé just has an image problem, thanks to white Zinfandel. It'd be like if you were a charming, suave man about town with an identical twin brother who liked to hang around in front of the TV in his boxer shorts, eating Cheetos all day long, and people kept mistaking you for him. Or him for you. You get the point.

In any case, lo and behold, I arrive at work this morning to a newsflash (yes, there are wine newsflashes, believe it or not) reporting that the annual Nielsen Company's analysis of the retail beverage market shows that in 2006 sales of rosés priced above $6.50 rose a whopping 23.9%; rosé sparkling wine rose 42.9%. Sales of blush wines—the aforementioned scary twin brother—were flat, on the other hand.

Crikey, it's a movement. All we need now are banners and a song.