How to tell if your rosé wine is good by sight

To make rosé, black-skinned grapes are crushed and the skins are allowed to remain in contact with the juice for a short period. Photo / 123RF

With the weather warming up and the sun bursting through the clouds more and more, the season for rosé wine is definitely here.

Sales of French rosés have shot up by 58 per cent in the last four weeks, according to Sainsbury's, with buyers at the supermarket expecting that figure to rise as temperatures look set to hit 23 degrees at the weekend.

But there's nothing worse than picking up a bottle of the summery wine, only to find it tastes like alcoholic Ribena, reports Daily Mail.

Here, FEMAIL reveals how you can tell if a rosé is a premium wine just by looking at it - if you're a fan of a drier tipple, that is.

A good rule of thumb for choosing a good quality rosé is: the paler, the better, particularly if you favour dry wines.

Pale rosés are much drier than their fruitier and bolder cousins, and generally taste of grapefruit, strawberry and tart cherry.

Rosé wines are usually made using the maceration method, where the grapes are pressed while in their skins before the skins are removed before the wine becomes too dark.

The shorter the time the grapes have sat in their skins, the paler - and drier - the wine will be.

Paler rosés are becoming more and more popular with customers, with Sainsbury's reporting that sales of their paler Bordeaux and Provence wines have grown by 24 per cent in the last year, before increasing by 58 per cent in the last month.

Wine experts have tipped 2017 to be a particularly big year for rosé, as Brits choose lighter and drier styles from the south of France over darker and sweeter varieties such as Zinfandel.

Elizabeth Newman, head of beers, wines and spirits at Sainsbury's, said: "We expect rosé to be the drink of summer 2017, increasing our range by 15% to keep up with its growing popularity.

"Consumer habits are changing as the UK begins to mirror trends in France - we are turning to France for paler styles."