Several summers ago, rosé wines suddenly got hot. In the Hamptons and other posh hangouts, pink wines became the obligatory cocktail-hour quaffers, and interest in rosés quickly spread elsewhere. Wine writers, no less beholden to trends than other journalists, began devoting more space to rosés, which only added to their appeal.

But even as we extolled the pleasures of good rosés, most of us figured the fad would flame out just as quickly as it ignited. Rosés, which get their tint from being macerated briefly with the skins of red wine grapes, had never been taken very seriously—in fact, "blush" wines used to be considered the lowest of the low—and it stood to reason that sales would decline along with the novelty. Instead, the rosé phenomenon is accelerating—so much so that some eminent Bordeaux châteaux have entered the market and a producer in Provence is offering the world's first luxury rosé, with a price tag of $100.

The data also indicates that this is a trend with legs. According to the Nielsen Company, sales of still rosé wines priced $5.99 and above jumped 32.1 percent by value for the year ending July 26. During that same period, total table wine sales grew just 5.1 percent. In some of the country's biggest markets, the numbers are even more impressive. In Seattle, for instance, rosé sales surged 56.1 percent. Nor is the rosé fetish confined to these shores. Ten years ago, one of every 100 bottles of wine purchased in Britain was a rosé; these days, it's one of every nine. In France, meanwhile, rosés are one of the few bright spots for a wine industry buffeted by weak demand at home and growing competition abroad: One in every five bottles sold in France is a rosé, and rosés recently eclipsed white wines in sales by volume.

The boom is luring serious players. Traditionally, the most ambitious rosés came from Provence—Domaines Ott (the rosé that caught the fancy of the Hamptons crowd) has always made one of the best, along with another producer from the Bandol appellation, Domaine Tempier. But they are now competing for shelf space with rosés from some of the most esteemed names in Bordeaux. Pichon-Baron, Pavie, Smith-Haut-Lafitte, Pavie-Macquin, and Calon-Ségur are among the châteaux turning out pink wines—making or seriously marketing them for the first time. Port producers are jumping in too: Croft recently unveiled Croft Pink, the first-ever rosé port (poolside sippers may be in for a surprise—like regular port, it is a fortified wine that tips the scale at 20 percent alcohol).

"I saw serious players entering the sector and they were clearly doing so because they saw consumer demand," says Adrian Bridge, the managing director of the Fladgate Partnership, which owns Croft and several other venerable port houses. "I have a strong conviction that rosé wines are here to stay and that they will continue to enjoy above-average growth in the coming years."