Usually, I know it’s time to stock up on fresh rose wines for the summer when the Coppertone display takes over the window of my local drug-store. This year, the signal to switch wine color (some roses actually are copper-tinted) was quite different.

As I stood, with other journalists, on the deck of the Boathouse restaurant on the lake in Central Park at noon Thursday, a gondola approached. Its single passenger, standing motionless, was an “angel,” garbed in a white toga and sporting a pair of pure white feathered wings. When the gondolier had poled his craft up to the dock, I saw that the angel was delivering a pair of bottles of a wine: “Cherub,” vintage 2005, a rose from the publicity-savvy, stylish Chilean winery Montes.

Roses don’t normally get star treatment – nor do they merit it – but as I began to sip Cherub ($17) there on the Boathouse deck, I felt it was deserving of special attention.

When sultry days come, Europeans dining at outdoor cafes call for a bottle of chilled rose as naturally as we Americans order a white wine (or iced tea or Fresca). On our side of the pond, however, rose has never shaken its declasse image. Even pink lemonade has more cachet. There’s a perfectly good reason to scorn most roses: Too often dominated by candy-sweetness, and not much else, they taste like Kool-Aid. And not even grape Kool-Aid, but strawberry.

So many roses seem to be a winemaker’s afterthought rather than the red wine that is usually his or her main event. And, often, that would be exactly right. Many roses are made from juice “bled” off from vats of newly harvested red grapes left to macerate prior fermentation. The remaining juice can then make maximum contact with the crushed grape skins, intensifying the color, aroma, and flavor of the red wine. Nothing is wrong with making rose wine from that bled off (seignee, in French) juice, of course. But it does have the limitation that it was not the winemaker’s primary interest.

Cherub 2005, by contrast, was raised from infancy to be a rose, according to Montes winemaker Aurelio Montes. “We identified certain blocks of young syrah vines for the rose and customized their viticulture,” he said over lunch. “And we picked the grapes by hand rather than by machine. We did it earlier than we would have for red wine so that we could get higher acidity levels for maximum freshness. That’s the only way to do a serious rose. After overnight cold maceration, the wine was fermented in stainless steel tanks. Cherub is 100% syrah rather than a blend of lesser grapes, which gives it a firmer structure,” Mr. Montes said.

Indeed, what is most striking about Cherub was not its vivid red berry fruit that comes in a first rush, but the way that taste firms up and persists in the mouth, as if it were a well-structured red wine rather than a “mere” rose. A hint of smokiness added further interest.

It goes without saying that the only way to drink a rose is well chilled. Or so I assumed until Mr. Montes described a dinner with friends that he’d hosted the previous week in Chile. “Our aperitif was Cherub straight out of the ice bucket,” he said. “Then, with a first course of delicately flavored steamed crab, we drank the same wine not quite so cold, which gave it slightly more richness to partner the dish. Finally, with the main course of fresh Chilean sea bass, which has a richer flavor, we drank the wine just slightly cooler than room temperature. It was full as well as fragrant. It worked with the fish as if it were a light, graceful red Sancerre.” Even more than arranging delivery by an angel, serving Cherub at three temperatures is the ultimate sign of respect for a rose.

OTHER RECOMMENDED ROSES OF SUMMER

WIRRA WIRRA VINEYARDS MRS. WRIGLEY ROSE 2004 ($16.95 a twinecommune.com) Cranberry-tinted, with a fragrantly sweet nose of purple plums. It delivers a surge of granache-driven flavor, so different from inoffensive roses. Mrs. Wrigley, according to the label, was a mother cat who dragged her litter into an open fermentor in the winery.

RED BICYCLETTE ROSE 2005, VIN DE PAYS D’OC ($8.95, widely available) Full and soft, with just enough push and plush to the red berry flavors to keep it interesting, it’s more “New World” than most southern French roses. Well priced.

LAURENS MARCILLAC 2005 ($10.99 at Chambers Street Wines) Ever hear of a grape called Fer Servadou? Or an appellation called Marcillac in southern France? I hadn’t until making the acquaintance of this dynamite rose. Bone-dry, it shows off a complex array of earthy flavors – at the other pole from Kool-Aid roses.

NICOLAS FEUILLATTE BRUT ROSE “1/4” ($10.99 per quarter bottle) Boasting snazzy packaging, including a nifty pink carrying strap, this champagne – from a gigantic but innovative champagne cooperative – is just the right size for a picnic aperitif for two.