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In the PinkHow rosé Champagnes got hot.

By Mike SteinbergerPosted Friday, Dec. 22, 2006, at 3:38 PM ET

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Are rosés worth the extra dough? In general, no—in many cases, you're just paying for prettier bubbles. That said, the better rosés are interesting, often endearingly quirky wines. They tend to combine textbook Champagne aromas and flavors—citrus and white fruits, honey, toast, nuts—with the berry, dark floral, and earthy notes more typical of red Burgundies than sparkling wines. What's quirky about rosés is the multiplicity of styles. Take, for example, the Krug rosé, a blend of multiple vintages. If you didn't know that it was a rosé, you might never guess it; there is hardly a trace of pink in the color, and the red-wine aspects are barely discernible (that said, it is a reassuringly ethereal Champagne—reassuring because there have been suggestions of late that the quality at Krug has slipped). By contrast, Veuve Clicquot's 1998 La Grande Dame rosé comes in a fiery blood-orange color and brims with red fruits, earth, spices, and minerals; it is essentially a red wine with bubbles.

If a rosé is on your holiday to-drink list and cost is no consideration, the Krug is your best bet. The Grande Dame, the 1996 Dom Pérignon, and the 2000 Taittinger Comtes de Champagne rosés are also excellent. The nonvintage category has no shortage of underwhelming, overpriced wines. There are, however, several nonvintage rosés—Perrier Jouët, Moët & Chandon, Nicolas Feuillatte—that offer good price-to-quality ratios. Then there is Billecart-Salmon, which is arguably the best-value nonvintage rosé on the market. Billecart is a small house that has long been recognized for the quality of its rosés. Its nonvintage sells for $72 but is a rosé that can go toe-to-toe with the likes of Krug, Taittinger, and Dom Pérignon. There are also some noteworthy grower-produced rosés. (Grower Champagnes are wines made by small farmers in the Champagne region who, bucking convention, choose to craft their own wines rather than sell their grapes to the major Champagne houses.) Typical of farmer fizzes, the grower rosés are utterly sui generis—in a few cases almost freakishly so.

Rather than using a rosé Champagne simply as an aperitif or for toasting purposes, you might consider drinking one with your holiday meal. The Champenois are always banging on about how their wines should be drunk with food. Rosés, at least, fare quite well at the table; the red-wine component gives them a heft most other Champagnes lack and makes it easy to pair them with poultry, game, and even meat. Instead of relegating the rosé to a supporting role, let it be the evening's sole bottle. The Champenois will thank you; come the morning, so might your head.

Click here for tasting notes on rosé Champagnes.

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Mike Steinberger is Slate's wine columnist. He can be reached at . His book, Au Revoir to All That, is about the rise, fall, and future of French cuisine.

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