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Rosé wine is really popular all over the world. How does it fit in the world of wine? What makes it different from white and red wine? Should you be drinking it now?
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Mike Supple: You're watching Screw It on SuppleWine. I'm your host, Mike Supple.

I've been getting a bunch of questions about rosé recently, so I decided it was time to explain it - talk about what it is, why it's popular and how it's made. Rosé is usually best enjoyed in hot, sunny weather. It is the middle of the winter, but I might as well talk about it now so you know what it is and then you'll be ready when the spring hits to grab some bottles and see what it's all about for yourself. That being said, you can enjoy it any time of the year.

There are actually three main ways of making rosé. The first is through skin contact. With very few exceptions, the juice of all grapes is clear. Red wine actually gets its color - and a lot of its flavors and aromas - from the skins of black and red grapes. Rosé wine made through the skin contact method starts out the same as red wine. Take the red grapes and crush them. As the juice sits touching the skin it starts to pick up some of the color.

For most red wines the juice sits on the skins throughout the entire fermentation process - sometimes several weeks - to really pick up all of that dark red intense color. When you're making a rosé wine you just let the juice sit on the skins for up to a couple of days just to pick up a little bit of that pink color with some of the fruity flavors and aromas. Of course the longer the juice sits on the skins, the darker the wine.

The second method is called saignée. It's a French word that literally means "bleeding" and it refers to the bleeding of juice from the vats. This is typically common when winemakers are trying to make red wine and they need to concentrate the juice. After just a couple of days (or less) of the juice sitting on the skins they'll "bleed" some of the juice off the skins - they drain some of the juice out of the vat. As a result you have some pink juice coming out of the vat that can be made into rosé wine, then everything else still in the vat gets more concentrated. When you have less juice on the same amount of skins the result is a more concentrated red wine.

The final method is not too common and is through blending - essentially just mixing red wine with white wine. This generally doesn't produce as high a quality rosé, however it is still commonly used for most rosé Champagne - they blend red Pinot Noir with the white Champagne - and you still end up with really high quality results.

It's pretty difficult to tell what method any wine maker used just by looking at the bottle. All of these methods can really vary in color and flavors. Rosé can vary in color anywhere from a pale pink salmon up to an incredibly dark, almost red-looking wine.

All rosés are best when served chilled - treat them somewhat like white wine. They are much more refreshing and crisp when chilled. In general, rosé doesn't have the same strength and body - or tannins - of a typical red wine. This is because a lot of the flavor and the tannins come from the grape skins. Since rosé has less skin contact it doesn't have as much power.

The style of rosé that is popular today is a dry, full-bodied style of wine. People seem to be getting away from the sugary sweet White Zinfandel that was made popular in the 1970s. The grapes that are really popular for making these big, bold styles of rosé are those that typically come from the south of France: Syrah, Grenache and Carignan. You see them coming from Spain as well - called Cariñena and Garnacha. These make dark, heavy, full-bodied, robust rosés. They're not quite as dark as a red wine but you might see a lot of color and they're generally bone dry (no sugar) with a lot of acidity and a lot of bright, fresh fruits.

What I have here is a wine from Malibu. The Malibu Rocky Oaks Estate Vineyards just started making a rosé called Red Leight. This wine is made predominantly from Syrah, but it also has Cabernet Sauvignon and a little bit of Cabernet Franc and Merlot. They are going for the big, bolder style of dry rosé - no sugar, but a little more alcohol to it, a little more kick and a little fuller bodied. It's a new product so I'll check it out to see how it fits into the world of rosé.

You might notice that the top of this bottle looks a little different from normal corks. That's because it's closed with a Zork. What that means for you is that you don't need a corkscrew - it's a lot easier to open and reseal for later use.

You want your rosé at least lightly chilled. I like mine pretty cold, like white wines.

[Pours a glass.] You can see in the color here that it's a pretty nice pink. A little bit darker than salmon, but not too intense in color.

[Smells the wine.] It does have a really nice nose. A lot of rosés you'll find have strawberry notes. That's because strawberry seems to be one of the aromas that comes out of the skins early on - just a fresh, bright strawberry. This has some nice aromas of ruby grapefruit, some cherry and other citrus like lemon and lime.

[Tastes the wine.] That's definitely a big, bold rosé. The first flavor that hits me like with the aroma is strawberry, but I also get a nice raspberry kick in there too. Some little notes of plum, and again that bright ruby grapefruit with some lemon zest in the back. But what I'm really noticing, even though the color is not that dark, it is a full bodied rosé. It really fills my mouth. I can feel the weight on my palate. I can tell it has a little higher alcohol content - alcohol adds weight to your palate - so it feels bigger in my mouth. Feels a lot bigger than a typical white wine.

I'd say the 2009 Red Leight is a really good example of the style of rosé that's popular around the world, but particularly in the United States right now. It's fuller in body, it's got nice weight to it on the palate, a lot of nice fresh fruit flavors, but it doesn't get overbearing.

So there you have it. Rosé is essentially red wine made in a white wine style. It generally has a little more body than white wine and is a little more refreshing than your average red wine, without that heavy tannic weight on your palate. So get out there and try it. Put some pink wine in your glass and see what rosé is all about.