What is saignée?

From what my blog stats show me the number one search that this site brings in is “what is saignée” followed by “how to pronounce saignée.” So instead of shirking my resposibility here is my master guide to saignée:

In French (from Wiktionary):

Pronunciation: /seɲe/

Verb
saignée f.

Feminine past participle of saigner.

Noun

saignée f. (plural saignées)

(medicine) bleeding; bloodletting
(figuratively) huge cut; heavy loss
trench, groove, ditch

In winemakers terms:

saignée

a method of rosé production that involves bleeding off the juice after limited contact with the skins. Pronounced ’sonyay’.

In shory saignée is one of the methods of making rosé wines, along with blending white and red wine (this is the method used to for rosé Champagne), along with a simply macerating (allowing contact with skins to leech out color and flavor) the wine with the skins for a short period of time. The difference between simply macerating the wine and removing the must and saigneé is that the wine left after the bleed-off is oftentimes still being made into a more concentrated red wine, and the rosé is a byproduct, often sold cheap (or was until rosé prices started to rise).