By Lettie Teague

The depth of color of a pink wine has to do with winemaking technique, the length of time the grapes' skins are in contact with the fermenting wine, even the thickness those skins. So, color can be a helpful guide to finding a rosé you like.

Great American wines come in all colors -- of which the least respected is, undoubtedly, pink. And yet with more and more quality rosés produced stateside, that should soon change.

According to the stereotype, a pink wine should be quaffable and cheap. It should also, preferably, be made in Provence or at least exhibit the signature pale-salmon color of a Provençal rosé. Conventional wisdom holds this is what sells come summer.

The amazing array of well-made rosés produced in the U.S. these days defies such tropes. Making use of all kinds of grapes, American pinks range in hue from pale pink to rich ruby and receive the same care and attention that their producers lavish on their whites and their reds. They are sourced from vineyards deliberately chosen because they produce exceptional pinks. Sure, they can be enjoyed poolside, but these high-quality rosés deserve a place at the table, too.

The Right Grapes for the Job

I've enjoyed several such wines over the years, but recently I've found a critical mass of American rosés I admire and want to drink, made in New York, Oregon and California. Judging by the quality of the wines I've tasted, I can say with confidence that American rosé has come of age.

That wouldn't surprise winemaker James Christopher Tracy of Channing Daughters Winery in Bridgehampton, N.Y. He has been producing serious rosés -- he calls them rosatos -- in multiple iterations for 20 years. In 2024 he made five different rosés from fruit "selected and grown for the express purpose of making pink wines," Tracy said.

The grapes Tracy favors include Cabernet Franc, Refosco and Merlot. "We want to celebrate rosé," he said. Drawing from four different vineyard sites, these versatile wines are "steak to seafood rosé." As he explained, the winery's location in the Hamptons on Eastern Long Island, between two bodies of water, makes it a particularly felicitous place to produce pink wines with a moderate alcohol content and a juicy natural acidity.

A Sense of Place

Based only a few miles down the road from Channing Daughters, winemaker Roman Roth of Wölffer Estate Vineyard makes rosés in Argentina and France as well as at his Long Island winery. The Long Island bottlings include the Wölffer Estate Rosé, the flower-festooned Summer in a Bottle Long Island Rosé and Roth's top cuvée, appropriately named Grandioso -- a blend of red and white grapes made in limited amounts and his only rosé produced entirely from Hamptons-grown grapes. Like Tracy, Roth praises the Long Island climate as ideal for producing rosé.

The Finger Lakes region of New York is another place particularly well suited to producing rosés with bright acidity and low alcohol, in this instance thanks to a cool climate. I tasted several good examples from the region, made from a diverse range of grapes.

The 2024 Hermann J. Wiemer Vineyard Finger Lakes Dry Rosé is a pretty Pinot Noir-based pink. Other Finger Lakes winemakers produce rosé from hardier red grapes such as Cabernet Franc and Zweigelt -- a combination that Nancy Irelan, winemaker of Red Tail Ridge Winery in Penn Yan, N.Y., likes so much for rosé that she grows the two varieties together in a specially planted vineyard.

"The Zweigelt provides the bright, crunchy strawberry and fresh-fruit attributes," she said, while the Cab Franc introduces "a slightly herbaceous and gravelly attribute that adds depth and weight on the palate." The juicy 2024 Red Tail Ridge Earl's Place Finger Lakes Dry Rosé is a testament to the happy combination.

Oregon and Washington state are home to a number of well made rosés. One of my favorite Oregon finds was the bright, lively and slightly spritzy 2024 Martin Woods Eola Springs Vineyard Willamette Valley Cabernet Franc Rosé.

Its maker, Evan Martin, long a fan of Loire Valley Cabernet Francs, thought the marine-influenced Eola Springs vineyard seemed like an ideal site to produce a Loire-style rosé.

"This wine took a tremendous amount of effort for me to produce," Martin said. "I put the same amount of attention and interest into it as I do my Chardonnay and Pinot Noir." Sadly, this is the only rosé Martin will make from this vineyard as he only had a one-year contract. Will Martin make another rosé, from another vineyard? Perhaps one day, he allowed.

Shades of Rosé

The depth of color of a pink wine has to do with winemaking technique, the length of time the grapes' skins are in contact with the fermenting wine, even the thickness those skins. So, color can be a helpful guide to finding a rosé you like.

Looking Rosy in the Golden State

California is currently awash in a great diversity of rosé wines -- seemingly as many types as there are Golden State winemaking talents. I've had a number of very good California rosé wines in years past but was pleased to find more than ever in my recent search.

As a top pick, several rosé producers I spoke to cited the California Rosé from the Healdsburg-based Arnot-Roberts winery -- also a favorite of mine year in and year out. Arnot-Roberts winemakers Duncan Arnot Meyers and Nathan Lee Roberts produce the terrific rosé from the native Portuguese grape Touriga Nacional.

"We started with Touriga in 2009," said Meyers, noting that the grape has the ability to develop good texture and flavor at low sugar. They only made only about 1,700 cases of the silky 2024 Arnot-Roberts California Rosé -- "on purpose," Meyers said. "We want it to be in good wine stores. It's not an afterthought."

Mendocino, meanwhile, is growing some particularly sought-after grapes for rosé wines. Sam Bilbro of Healdsburg-based Idlewild Wines produced the notably savory 2024 Idlewild Flora & Fauna North Coast Rosé primarily from Nebbiolo grown in an organically farmed Mendocino vineyard.

Back in 2007, Matt Licklider, co-proprietor of LIOCO Wines, first ventured north to Mendocino to produce the LIOCO Rosé of Carignan, a "serious vineyard-driven rosé from a historic vineyard," he said. "It wasn't exactly an overnight success. We ended up drinking a lot of it because our distributors wouldn't buy it." But Licklider didn't lose faith: "We knew it was going to have its time." Today, this rosé is one of the winery's most popular offerings.

In Sebastopol, Sonoma County, Scott and Jenny Schultz of Jolie-Laide produce their RoséGamay/Cabernet Franc from grapes harvested in El Dorado, up in the Sierra Foothills. Schultz explained that the impetus behind the wine was more personal than market-driven. "We make what we like and hope that other people like it as well," he said.

For Sonoma winemaker Martha Stoumen, a rosé epiphany came by way of the Bricarelli Ranch vineyard in Mendocino County. The dry-farmed vineyard site "spoke to her" as the perfect place to produce a rosé from Nero d'Avola, a native Sicilian grape. "I've made rosé outside Bricarelli and it just doesn't have the same acidity," Stoumen said. Her dark-hued Martha Stoumen Non Vintage No. 2 Nero d'Avola Rosato is a juicy, frothy joy to drink.

While these American rosés come from very different places and grapes, in a surprising variety of styles, each one is made with intention -- not in spite of but because the fact that the wine is pink.

10 Great American Rosés to Stock Up On This Summer

1. 2024 Martin Woods Eola Springs Vineyard Willamette Valley Cabernet Franc Rosé, $27

Winemaker Evan Martin admires the rosés of Loire Valley-based Domaine Guiberteau and sought to emulate its Cabernet Franc rosés with this fresh, lively and slightly, delightfully spritzy wine. Truly one to snap up now, as this is the only rosé Martin will make from this vineyard, leased only for one year.

2. 2024 Arnot-Roberts California Rosé, $28

Ask a domestic rosé producer to name a rosé they admire, and this Arnot-Roberts wine will likely be cited. It is made primarily from the Touriga Nacional grape, producing a wine with bright acidity and relatively low alcohol. This wonderfully well-balanced wine is both a delightful aperitif and fine complement to a meal.

3. 2024 Hermann J. Wiemer Vineyard Finger Lakes Dry Rosé, $21

In New York's Finger Lakes region, Pinot Noir has proven to be a great grape for producing attractive rosés like this one, marked by peach and floral notes, from a noted Riesling producer.

4. 2024 Channing Daughters North Fork of Long Island Rosato di Cabernet Franc, $22

Winemaker James Christopher Tracy has a two-decade track record of producing first-rate cool-climate rosés at his Long Island winery. This bright and vibrant Cabernet Franc-based wine is one of five rosés he produced in 2024.

5. 2024 Idlewild Flora & Fauna North Coast Rosé, $25

"I love a rosé that's meant to be on the table," said Idlewild's winemaker and owner, Sam Bilbro. His wonderfully savory, tangy, crisp rosé is truly a wine meant for food. Bilbro produces a wide range of wines from Italian grape varieties -- including this rosé made from Nebbiolo, the grape of Piedmont, sourced partly from a Mendocino vineyard Bilbro planted.

6. 2024 Jolie-Laide Barsotti Vineyard El Dorado RoséGamay/Cabernet Franc, $33

Sebastopol-based Scott Schultz makes small amounts of unconventionally wonderful wines such as this delightfully fresh pink produced from Gamay and Cabernet Franc grown in a high-elevation El Dorado vineyard.

7. 2024 LIOCO Mendocino Rosé of Carignan, $25

"People don't talk about vineyard source with rosé," said Matt Licklider, co-owner of LIOCO Wines in Healdsburg, Calif. Of this very dry, slightly herbal rosé, however, he noted, "It's very much a vineyard-driven project." It was produced from an old-vine Carignan vineyard in Mendocino that Licklider chose for its rosé suitability.

8. Martha Stoumen Non Vintage No. 2 Nero d'Avola Rosato, $31

Sonoma winemaker Martha Stoumen found her distributors were too often focused on vintage when it came to rosé. So she decided to label her wine non-vintage. Her rosé of Nero d'Avola, from grapes grown at Bricarelli Ranch in Mendocino, is big in every way -- certainly in color and in deliciousness.

9. 2024 Red Tail Ridge Earl's Place Finger Lakes Dry Rosé, $22

This blend of Cabernet Franc and Zweigelt planted in the same nine-acre Finger Lakes, N.Y., vineyard yielded a light and juicy, watermelon-inflected (and watermelon-colored) rosé that's a pleasure to drink all by itself or to pair with a remarkably wide range of foods.

10. 2024 Wölffer Grandioso Long Island Rosé, $32

This small-production rosé from pink-wine guru Roman Roth is lush and full bodied, rich yet well balanced by a bright mineral note. Fermented in older French barrels, it's a blend of red and white grapes sourced entirely from estate fruit.

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Lead image: Photography by Elizabeth Coetzee/WSJ; Prop Styling by Marina Bevilacqua

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May 30, 2025 16:00 ET (20:00 GMT)

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