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.