Here's dry rosé's trajectory in the past few years: from understudy ("really, drink it any time of year") to brief star flash to a kind of reliable character actor.

Not long ago, it was having a moment - "How," we asked in 2008, "did people come to embrace a wine that was once shunned?" - a cultural watershed that revealed what wine writers had been kvetching about for years: Rosé was the great undiscovered gem. (We have no doubt you were quietly reading along all that time.)

Has its grand reveal translated into lasting fame? Probably not, but dry rosé has found a sort of happy, mellow burn. After stellar increases in previous years, sales of rosé at $8 or more per bottle were up 15 percent in the past year according to the Nielsen Co.

The restaurant realm, too, is struggling with rosé - quick: find a wine list with more than three pink bottles - but even there, it has found a reliable and happy role - and almost without fail, a gaspingly affordable one. No surprise there. The gist of the hoary annual rosé column has long been that it is a perfect food wine.

But rosé has also managed to develop into something a touch more serious.

This was first witnessed in the sparkling realm - rosé Champagne not only managed to outpace the cost of its paler siblings, but also showcased the best winemaking that bubbly had to offer. Now that same gravitas (which, to be fair, has long existed in spots like Provence) has arrived on the still side. Just two years ago we were awash in wines that seemed like castoffs from red winemaking - carrying along the overdone flavors of the red grapes their juice was bled from. This year? So many wines showed both freshness and precision. My guess as I tasted this season's crop was that they were created to be their own thing, rather than a byproduct.

It was no hunch. Our latest tasting (see The Chronicle Recommends) revealed a proliferation of bottles made by directly pressing red grapes after a brief spell during which the juice soaked in flavor, color and tannin. To dedicate grapes specifically to rosé, rather than bleeding away pale juice from red grapes, is a distinct sign of seriousness.

Something else: On the West Coast, at least, 2011 was a relatively cool year, a struggle to ripen many red grapes. To me, that helps to explain the range of current standouts. If you can't quite ripen red grapes, it's a wise choice to turn them into rosé. I suspect that will be a metastory of the 2011 harvest.

If the silver lining of a tough harvest is a standout crop of pink wine, it's hard to find fault.

So many of these wines are vivacious and delicious. And as our first real look at the wines from 2011, they are an auspicious omen that restraint and freshness will likely be in effect.

We liked pink choices from a dizzying array of grapes, but it's worth highlighting the splendid quality of Pinot Noir rosé this year, in particular from Oregon. Many of these wines show a complexity and depth not usually ascribed to this particular hue. They do so at a price that makes them irresistible.

To find such a good crop of Pinot rosé is further evidence that pink wine is serious business. And to me, it's also an omen that rosé is being viewed in distinct gastronomic terms. It is adopting a life beyond the summer cocktail party.

A happy few of us have long held this to be the case. Now it seems word has spread. Feel free to blush at our mutual good fortune.