{"id":356115,"date":"2026-06-11T11:27:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-11T11:27:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/356115\/"},"modified":"2026-06-11T11:27:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-11T11:27:08","slug":"8-exciting-california-roses-to-sip-for-summer-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/356115\/","title":{"rendered":"8 exciting California ros\u00e9s to sip for summer 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

This week, we published our Food & Wine team rankings of six Costco ros\u00e9s<\/a>, and the winner truly surprised me: the cheapest bottle, priced at $8.99. I think it\u2019s great that there are affordable, quality choices of ros\u00e9. One silver lining of the wine industry\u2019s oversupply issue<\/a> for consumers is that you can find incredible deals<\/a> on wine at big box stores. I visited three Costcos and the majority of the ros\u00e9 section at each was from Provence, widely considered the benchmark of ros\u00e9 production. These ros\u00e9s are typically light, refreshing and fruity \u2014 perfect for poolside sipping.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

But, there are other options worth exploring this summer: California ros\u00e9s from small independent producers. Yes, they\u2019re more expensive than our Costco picks, but they offer a depth and diversity that you won\u2019t find in your local warehouse. Over the past two months, I\u2019ve tried as many local ros\u00e9s as possible, spanning multiple California regions; a spectrum of pink shades; and a wide range of grape varieties, including some that you\u2019ll rarely find in U.S.-made ros\u00e9s, such as Palomino and Touriga Nacional.<\/p>\n

At the Mr. Pink Party, a rose tasting event at Compline in Napa, I reunited with two of my all-time favorite California ros\u00e9s: Arnot-Roberts\u2019 rare, delicious Portuguese blend<\/a> of Touriga Nacional with Tinta C\u00e3o, Trincadeira and Grenache ($27) and Robert Sinskey\u2019s bright, slightly creamy Vin Gris of Pinot Noir<\/a> ($36). Both of these bottles have been consistently great year after year. The Pinot Noir ros\u00e9 from Sonoma\u2019s Donum Estate<\/a> also really stood out to me; it was vibrant, high-acid and juicy, if a little pricey at $50.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In April, I carried a brand new ros\u00e9 down a hiking trail to a DJ set on the banks of the Napa River. Chasing Ether<\/a> is an experimental label from South African winemaker Jon Berlin (best known as the longtime winemaker at Napa Valley\u2019s El Molino), focused on fresh, easy-drinking wines at reasonable prices. Berlin told me he\u2019s targeting younger drinkers, who he feels have been priced out of wine. \u201cNo longer can you drive up Hwy 29 or 12 and taste freely with friends and walk out of a tasting room with a couple of yummy, affordable wines under your arm,\u201d he said. \u201cThe gateway drug is no longer available to get people into wine.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Chasing Ether ros\u00e9 certainly checks a lot of those boxes. It\u2019s $25, light, fresh and made with unconventional grapes. The label simply says \u201cros\u00e9,\u201d and no one would guess it\u2019s actually a blend of Mourvedre, Carignan and Palomino (the Spanish grape used in Sherry) from century-old vines. So it is both a talking point and a crowd-pleaser that will meet any summer moment involving water and bathing suits.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve shared several bottles of ros\u00e9 with my bocce ball team on recent Tuesday nights, including the Minus Tide Carignan Rose ($27)<\/a> made from Mendocino County vines planted in 1908. It\u2019s absolutely mouthwatering and works well on its own and with food. (I\u2019ve never met a Minus Tide wine I didn\u2019t like.) This Tuesday, I brought the Rosado Fresco ($26)<\/a>, a blend of Grenache and Graciano, from Lodi\u2019s Spanish winery, Bokisch Vineyards<\/a>. An icy-pink wine,\u00a0 it\u2019s super-juicy, with a dominant watermelon flavor and a pear finish that lingers. I could feel the acid on my teeth, but in a good way.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019d happily buy a case of all of these, but there’s one ros\u00e9 that really wowed me:\u00a0Dianthus from Paso Robles\u2019 Tablas Creek<\/a> ($40). This wine has a dark blush color that reminds me of the giant bottle of Beringer\u2019s White Zin my mom always had in the fridge growing up, but it tastes a thousand times better. A Bandol-inspired blend of Mourvedre, Grenache, Counoise and Cinsault, it\u2019s bursting with strawberry. This is the ultimate food ros\u00e9, thanks to some serious structure, but the tannins are delicate, preserving its crushability. I opened this at the start of a dinner party, where it was an immediate hit. While the Dianthus is sold out on Tablas Creek\u2019s website, the winery\u2019s Patelin de Tablas Ros\u00e9<\/a> ($30), a blend of Grenache, Mourv\u00e8dre and Counoise made in the lighter Proven\u00e7al style, is a worthy consolation prize.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This week, we published our Food & Wine team rankings of six Costco ros\u00e9s, and the winner truly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":356116,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8,413,3945],"class_list":["post-356115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-food","tag-wine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=356115"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356115\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/356116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=356115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=356115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=356115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}