The one glass that goes with everything

If there’s one wine that’s a universal match with summertime fare -- especially barbecue, with its smoky tang and assertive sauces -- it’s a good dry rose.

Combining the flavor and body of a light red with the crisp acidity of a palate-refreshing white, rose covers all the bases. It rounds out lighter dishes and lightens up richer ones. It goes with hot weather as well as it goes with food, and there are some excellent choices in the affordable, picnic-appropriate price range.

So as the coals burn down to the color of a Pacific sunset, think pink.

American wine snobs would have us believe that the only wine worth drinking is a heavy red with lots of tannin and alcohol. Europeans know better. With their long tradition of drinking wine with most meals, they have long since discovered that a good dry rose goes with just about anything. Virtually every French wine district produces a rose. Ditto Italy, Spain, Portugal -- the style is popular with pretty much everybody but us and the Aussies.

But as more of us discover the pleasures of dry rose, American producers are responding with some impressive versions of the classical form.

When selecting a rose, be sure to insist on dry. Stay away from pink wines in large bottles and anything with the word “white” in the name (white Zinfandel, white Merlot, etc.). With few exceptions, they tend to be well on the sweet side.

Here are a few outstanding dry roses, from France, Italy, and California, all in the $10-to-$15 range.

The Mediterranean climate of Provence, where it’s always summer (except when the Mistral is blowing), produces first-rate roses. A perennial standout is Chateau Routas Rouviere, a delicious dry rose from the picturesque village of Chateauvert. The 2002 is exceptional, with a brilliant deep color and the lip-smacking flavor to go with it. Taste it with your eyes closed, and you’ll swear it’s a smooth, fruity red.

Areas known primarily for white wine aren’t generally warm enough to produce dark red wines, but they can produce wonderful roses. Sancerre, in the upper Loire Valley, is a good example. Its great reputation rides on bracing Sauvignon Blanc, but the warmer southern exposures, a little too warm for white grapes, are often planted to Pinot Noir. Attempts at full-on red Sancerre aren’t always successful, but Sancerre rose is a delight.

Most Sancerre rose is eagerly consumed in Parisian bistros (with everything from sausages to pissaladiere), but some show up in the U.S.

Andre Dezat Sancerre Rose 2001 makes the point. It has ravishing Pinot Noir perfume and succulent fruit flavors, yet is bone dry, with that fine Sancerre minerality that comes from mature vines with their roots deep in limestone soil.

Italians are as possessive of their exuberant roses as the French, but there are exceptions. One good dry rose that is exported to this country is from Castello di Ama, a top Chianti Classico estate. One of the reasons Castello di Ama’s red is so intensely dark and flavorful is that a little freshly-pressed juice is drawn off the skins prior to fermentation, further concentrating the red wine. Fermented separately, that vivid salmon-hued “blood of the vat” is bottled as Rosato.

The Castello di Ama Rosato 2002 is the essence of Tuscan Sangiovese in a slurpable summertime form. Just the thing with grilled boudin blanc and spicy mustard.

Iron Horse Vineyards follows the Tuscan lead with its own Rosato di Sangiovese, made from gloriously ripe Alexander Valley grapes. Like Castello di Ama’s, Iron Horse’s Rosato is an offspring of a notable red Sangiovese. The 2002 has a color like that neon line on the horizon that separates afternoon and evening. The flavor is like a blend of strawberries, raspberries and other red fruit with a little black pepper sprinkled on top. It has enough body and flavor to handle a spicy barbecue sauce and the acidity to wash it down, leaving a clean, tangy aftertaste.

SoloRosa 2002 is another superb California rose made primarily from Sangiovese. Its lively melange of red-fruit flavors (mainly raspberry, cranberry and strawberry) ride on a creamy texture that results from aging in neutral oak barrels.

Scherrer Vin Gris -- a real wine, with structure, complexity and elegance -- has quietly taken its place with the world’s finest roses. The 2002 is another light crimson beauty with the vibrant freshness of just-pressed juice taken from tanks of Fred Scherrer’s gorgeous Russian River Valley Pinot Noir and Alexander Valley Zinfandel. It combines the piercing cranberry-rose perfume of Pinot from sandy Gold Ridge soil with the spiced cherry flavor of old-vine Zin in a smooth, full-bodied rose with red wine character.

Scherrer Vin Gris defies you to try it with some grilled halibut and habanero salsa. With or without food, it stands as California’s definitive new-generation rebuttal of the sticky, flabby-pink creation known as white Zinfandel.