People ask us at least twice a week — "how is rosé actually made?" The honest answer: there are at least six ways, and most pink wines you drink aren't made the way you'd guess. Here's a plain-English breakdown of all six, which of our wines uses which method, and which two methods we've deliberately chosen not to use.
★ The Traynor Pink Lineup ★
Tap a bottle to shop — or read on for the full story.
First, a myth to kill
Rosé is not "red wine and white wine mixed together."
Well — it can be. That's method #6 below. But mixing is by far the least common way to make rosé, and it's illegal in most classified wine regions of Europe. If you drink a glass of Provence rosé, you're almost certainly drinking wine made by one of the first three methods, not by blending finished wines.
The pink colour comes from contact between red grape skins and the juice — the same way red wine gets its colour. The difference is just how long that contact lasts. A red wine sits on its skins for weeks. A rosé might sit on them for four hours, or four days, or (in one method) not at all.
Here are the six methods, in the order they show up in the winery.
Method 1 — Saignée (bled)
The idea: You start out making red wine. Red grapes go into a tank, they start fermenting on the skins. After a few hours (or up to a day), you open a spigot and drain off a portion of the juice, which by now has picked up some colour. That drained juice becomes rosé. The remaining juice — now more concentrated — keeps going and becomes a more intense red wine.
"Saignée" is French for "bled." You are literally bleeding the tank.
Result: Rosé with real depth. Because it's a byproduct of red-wine production, saignée rosés tend to have more structure, tannin, and colour than "on-purpose" rosés. Think dark salmon to light ruby, with real weight in the mouth.
Bang Bang Pet-Nat
Our Cab Franc saignée rosé pet-nat. We bleed the red-wine tank, then bottle mid-fermentation for natural bubbles — zero added sulfur. Bubblegum nose, light raspberry, weight in the mouth.
Shop Bang Bang →Method 2 — Clarete (co-fermented)
The idea: Old-school Spanish method. You co-ferment red grapes AND white grapes together on the skins, from the start. The red grapes bring colour and structure; the white grapes bring acidity and floral notes. Everything ferments together in one vessel.
Clarete is technically a category of its own — historically it referred to a wine somewhere between rosé and light red, which is exactly what this method produces.
Result: A distinctive rosé with more complexity than the single-varietal saignée version. Because the white grapes carry fresh acidity and the red grapes carry the colour + structure, you get a wine that's brighter and more aromatic than a straight saignée but still with some grip.
Cherry Bomb
Cabernet Franc, Chardonnay, and Merlot co-fermented on the skins with native yeast. Drinks like cherry, cranberry, and a bright acid backbone.
Shop Cherry Bomb →Method 3 — Ripasso (re-passed)
The idea: Also old-school, borrowed from the Valpolicella region of Italy where it was invented for red wine (Amarone → Valpolicella Ripasso). We've adapted the idea for rosé.
You start with an already-fermented rosé — call it a base wine. You then pour that rosé back over the used skins of a fermented red wine, and let it macerate. The base wine picks up more flavour, more colour, and more depth from the "used" skins. It's a way to add complexity to a lighter wine without over-extracting on the first pass.
Result: A rosé that feels more like a very light red — deeper colour, more grip, more black-fruit character. Interesting for anyone who wants "a rosé that feels like a red."
Breakfast in the Vineyard
Gamay Noir rosé finished via ripasso on Gamay skins. Real red-fruit depth for a rosé — pairs like a light red, drinks with brunch.
Shop Breakfast in the Vineyard →Method 4 — Piquette (second pressing)
The idea: After red grapes have been pressed for wine, the leftover wet skins still hold juice, flavour, and colour. Instead of composting them, you add water, let the skins referment for a few days, and press again. The result is a light, low-alcohol, refreshing pink drink.
Piquette isn't a "rosé" in the strict wine-law sense — it's its own category. But it's pink, it's made from red grape skins, and it deserves a spot on this list. Historically, French vineyard workers drank piquette as their everyday beverage during harvest — a way to hydrate without wasting anything the fruit had left to give.
Result: Low-alcohol (usually 4–6%), lightly sparkling, refreshing. Almost like a wine spritzer that made itself. Bright acid, subtle red fruit, drinkable at brunch or on a hot patio afternoon.
Ophelia Original Piquette
Pressed skins + water + native yeast, refermented and lightly sparkling. Zero added sulfur. Our everyday-drinking pink — lower alcohol, meant for actually drinking.
Shop Ophelia →Method 5 — Short maceration (the "typical" rosé)
The idea: This is the method most Provence rosés use. Red grapes are crushed, and the juice sits on the skins for a short window — anywhere from 2 hours to 24 hours — long enough to pick up some pink colour, and then the juice is pressed OFF the skins and fermented as a white wine would be.
The name of the game is pale. Modern Provence rosé is deliberately trying to be as pale as possible — near-transparent, delicate pink. That's not the "correct" rosé colour; it's a stylistic choice.
Result: Fresh, light, dry, delicate. When it's good it's summer in a glass. When it's mediocre it can taste like flavoured water.
Traynor Wine
We don't make one. Short-maceration rosé is a crowded category — every winery in the world already makes one. If you want a great short-maceration rosé, look at Ontario producers like Southbrook, Pearl Morissette, or Trail Estate.
Method 6 — Blush (blending after fermentation)
The idea: Ferment a red wine. Ferment a white wine. Blend them together in the tank at the end.
This is the one that gave rosé a bad name in the 80s — think white zinfandel. It's also, per the Provence rosé rules and most EU wine law, forbidden. In France, you cannot legally sell a wine as "rosé" if it was made by blending finished red and white wines. The exception, weirdly, is Champagne — where blending red and white base wines to make rosé Champagne is standard and permitted.
Result: Wildly variable. Can be lovely if you're a Champagne house with exquisite base wines. Can be dreadful if you're mass-producing sweet pink stuff for supermarket shelves.
Traynor Wine
We don't make one — and we won't. Blending after fermentation gives you tools to "correct" a wine. We'd rather commit to the character of what the fruit gives us and use one of the on-the-skins methods above.
So which one is "best"?
None of them. They're just different.
The style we've settled into at Traynor is the first four — saignée, clarete, ripasso, and piquette. It's not the most crowded space in Ontario, and it lets us make wines that don't feel like everyone else's rosé.
★ What to eat with rosé ★
short mac.
Bang Bang
Cherry Bomb
Breakfast in V.
Ophelia piquette
any of ours
Frequently asked
Is rosé just red wine and white wine mixed together?
No — not usually. In most of the wine world it's actually illegal to sell a wine as "rosé" if it was made that way. Real rosé gets its colour from limited contact between red grape skins and the juice. See method 6 above for the exception (Champagne).
Why are some rosés pale pink and others dark salmon?
It comes down to how long the juice was in contact with the skins. Short-maceration Provence rosés (a few hours) come out very pale. Saignée and ripasso rosés (12–24+ hours) come out deeper, with more colour and more structure.
Is piquette actually rosé?
Technically, no — piquette is its own category. It's made from water and pressed skins rather than from primary juice, and it's lower in alcohol (usually 4–6%) than traditional rosé. But it's pink, it's made from red grape skins, and it drinks like a lighter rosé. Think of it as the everyday-drinking cousin of rosé. Our Ophelia Piquette is a great entry point.
Is rosé always dry?
No. Traditional Provence rosé is dry, but there are plenty of sweeter rosé styles in the market. All of ours are dry.
Do all Traynor pink wines go through the same skin-contact process?
Yes — every pink wine we make involves the juice actually being on red or mixed skins during fermentation (or, for piquette, on the used skins with water). We do not make any blended-after-the-fact rosés.
What's the best food pairing for rosé?
Depends on the style. Saignée or clarete (Bang Bang, Cherry Bomb) has enough weight for grilled salmon, prosciutto, and lighter red-meat dishes. Ripasso (Breakfast in the Vineyard) handles almost anything a light red would. Piquette (Ophelia) pairs beautifully with brunch, snacks, and casual summer eating.
★ Try the whole pink lineup ★
Four rosés, four methods, one cellar
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