It may not be sunny, but it is Memorial Day weekend, and you know what I'm thinking? Pink! Rhubarb and strawberries, shrimp Louie, cherries, pink boxers, and yes, rosé.

Stand up and be counted, pink wine drinkers! Personally, I love it when a date seconds my order of rosé. A person who embraces pink wine is a person who's not afraid to get a little girly. It means he or she is a hey, why not? sort of person, happy to take a little vacation from the hopped-up IPAs and tannin-slugging Cabs to sip on what your aunt Cherrie would call a "swimmin' pool wine."

I have fond associations with rosé--chaise lounges, love, the South of France--but I've found that rosé really cheers anyone up, if they're man (or woman) enough to drink it.

So, what's worth pouring this weekend as you lounge under the patio umbrella? My two faves remain Bonny Doon's Vin Gris de Cigare ($15) and Domaine Tempier's Bandol Rosé ($32). The Bandol 2008 vintage has just arrived at Kermit Lynch in Berkeley; get over there now before they drink it all up. Both these wines are supple and elegant, perfect for a sunny summer lunch with cold salmon and a salad full of flowers.

Over at Bi-Rite Market, assistant wine buyer Sarah Bouldin puts the Robert Sinskey Vin Gris ($22.99) on the top of her list. "We can only get 10 cases at a time, so it goes fast. It's really well balanced, with strawberry fruitiness, a little melon." And then there's the Unti Rosé ($18.99), a biodynamic wine from Mick Unti in Healdsburg. Says Bouldin, "It's lighter than the Sinskey, a little more acidic. We're always happy to get our hands on anything Mick produces; his wines are always delicious, really outstanding."

Rosés are featured right now at the Ferry Plaza Wine Merchant, both as a flight on the tasting menu in the bar as well as in their adjoining shop. Wine buying manager Drea Dedona likes their classic Provencal rosés, of course, but also points out the Botasea Rosato di Palmino ($18), from Santa Barbara, made by winemaker Chrystal Clifton. Actually, it's hard to miss; it looks like strawberry Boone's Farm slapped with a lipstick-pink label. "I know the color's a little scary," Dedona admits, "But it's got great fruit and a little spice," thanks to a 50/30/20 blend of dolcetto, nebbiolo, and barbera grapes. There's also a reason for the pink: part of the purchase price of every bottle goes to support breast cancer research.

Were money no object, though, I'd throw down for the Billecart-Salmon Brut Rosé ($80), a fabulously glam and grown-up French Champagne that glows like sunshine on pink marble.

But what if you're looking for a rosé that's more naked Carla Bruni, less Dior-clad Mme Sarkozy? Then you want Jean-Paul Brun's FRV100 ($16.99). Say it like the French do: eff-air-vay-cent. (Get it?) This is Brun's sparkling answer to soda-pop Beaujolais Nouveau: a light, fast-fermented wine with some residual sugar that's a goofy, picnic-perfect good time, not just overhyped grape juice.

From the glittery black label to the fan-dancing fizz inside, this is an unapologetic disco wine, made to get the party started. "It really should have house music pumping out of the bottle," laughs Bouldin. It's also a good way for a girl to drink and have fun without ending the evening as a drunk-dialing hot mess, thanks to an alcohol content that's just 7.5%.

Don't want to drink pink alone? Drop by Piccino on Sunday, May 31st from noon to 9 pm for Dogpatch's own festival of rosés. On the menu: pizzas, salads, a few lovely specials, and lots of rosés, all guaranteed to charm.

This past Memorial Day took me out of the cold, foggy city and up to sun-drenched Pt. Reyes Station to celebrate Cowgirl Creamery's 10th Anniversary. Cowgirls, Cowboys, and friends and families of both gathered under circus-peaked tents to listen to the inspirational words of The Cowgirls (Peg Smith and Sue Conley), Albert Straus of Straus Family Creamery, and Janet Brown of AllStar Organics. After the speeches, the entire staff plus the Straus family and some honored customers, stood for a very long time for a very large photo and then finally went into the closed-on-Mondays Tomales Bay Foods barn to chow down on the homemade potluck.

I balanced a satisfyingly heavy plate of Laura's Kitchen Sink Mac and Cheese, chorizo, cornbread, salad, and my own basil-mint pesto edamame in one hand and grabbed at a wine glass with the other. I had taken a long sip of the Mount Tamalpais Vin Gris 2006 and was just starting to think that it was the best pink wine I had tasted in about ten years when I heard someone behind me ask, "How's the wine?" I turned around to see a tall guy wearing a yellow Pey-Marin tee-shirt that matched the label on another bottle sitting on the bar. I babbled about how fabulously spicy and dry the rosé was. How I hadn't had a wine like that since I tasted my very first Rosé d'Anjou. How THIS was the kind of stiff rosé I could snuggle up with any day of the week. Then I caught myself and, gesturing at his shirt, I added politely, "Of course, I haven't tried your wine yet." Well, I had, because Pey-Marin and Mount Tamalpais are labels from the same wine-making family, Susan and Jonathan Pey of Marin Wines. Jonathan smiled at me and said, "I just wanted an honest reaction."

Well, he got it. This vin gris is insanely good. It went with everything on my plate -- the rich mac and cheese, the stingingly spicy chorizo, the fresh basil-mint pesto, everything. I had to have a bottle of this. Jonathan told me I could find it at Plumpjack and the Ferry Plaza Wine Merchant in the city.

The bottle secured a week later, I set about trying to confuse the wine with a whole host of foods. Secretly, I knew it could stand up to every single one of them, but I still had to try. We sat down to a dinner of minted Iacopi English peas with red onion, garlic, and roasted Dirty Girl turnips, homemade black pepper fettuccine with a wild mushroom-thyme cream sauce, and a beet salad with spicy greens (Heirloom Organics tatsoi and arugula and Four Sisters flowering watercress). The vin gris not only stood up to everything, including the rich and earthy mushroom sauce, but it actually gave each dish a shove back, asserting its own strong personality without shouting them down. My amaranth-hued glass gleamed back at me across my plate as if to say, "Is that all you've got? Because I can take it. Bring it on, my friend. Bring. It. On."

Even the color is fierce! None of this blush and bashful pink that's barely a whisper of color, this was wildhotcrazy lascivious pink. The pink of deep-bosomed sunsets, the pink of Barbie's dress from the 80s (you know the one I mean), the pink of Belle Watling's sheets, the discontinued pink of a Clinique lipstick I wore in high school. This Mount Tamalpais Vin Gris isn't "pink," it's "PINK!"

I don't know much about wines. I just know what I like, and I loved this.

Mount Tamalpais Vin Gris 2006, $18.00

Next Week: Mount Tamalpais Merlot