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Red wine stains can be identified by their deep, red-purple color and the lingering smell of fruit and alcohol. Depending on the color of the wine, the stain can turn pink or reddish-brown as it dries.
When you see a slosh, you can usually spot the perpetrator by the glass clutched in his hand or the look of shock or embarrassment plastered across his face. If you're a guest, you probably breathe a sigh of relief that it wasn't you. If it's your house, you can feel the panic begin to rise in your throat. - Blot the area immediately and begin to treat the stain as soon as possible. The sooner you begin to work the greater your chances that the unsightly mark will be removed completely. The time it takes to remove the stain will vary depending on how much wine was spilled, what item was stained and how long the stain has been sitting.
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Red wine stains can happen in a variety of ways: The bottle could drip while pouring, a clumsy gesture might knock over a glass or a tipsy guest could trip or bump a fellow drinker, causing wine to slosh over the rim. But regardless of how the stain came to be, run for the paper towel immediately. Fresh stains are relatively easy to remove. If a puddle sits for any length of time, the dark color will begin to transfer.
To lift the excess liquid from a stain, blot the spill. To draw liquid out of thick or dense items like sweaters or carpeting, cover the area with kosher salt or baking soda after blotting. Remove it after a few minutes with a damp cloth or with a vacuum.
To treat carpet, blot up the excess wine and saturate the area with vinegar or club soda. Spread the stain with a mixture of three parts baking soda and one part water. Let the mixture dry and then vacuum it up.
For tough stains, a popular method is to combine equal parts of hydrogen peroxide and dishwashing liquid or another soap suitable for the item stained. For example, use Woolite for wool clothing and carpet cleaner for carpets. Dab the stain with a sponge or mist the area if you have an empty spray bottle handy. Be sure to test the mixture on a small, discrete area before you saturate the stain. Peroxide is a bleaching agent and may damage the color of darker fabrics. If you are worried about possible damage, try reducing the amount of peroxide in your cleaning mixture. -
Do not pretreat or try to remove stains from dry clean-only items. You may end up damaging your clothing irreversibly. Immediately blot the stain with a cloth to remove excess liquid and rush it to the cleaners.
Scrubbing stains can cause them to deepen and the back-and-forth motion can fray the fibers of most cloth. Blot the stain by repeatedly pressing an absorbent cloth firmly over the area and, if you are able, run the item under cold water to rinse out as much of the wine as possible before you use a method of stain removal.
Always soak items in cool or lukewarm water and then pretreat them before putting them in the washer. And only launder stained items in cold water. Hot water causes the stain to set and it may never come out. Also, be careful not to iron or put the item in the dryer until the stain is no longer visible. -
When cleaning up wine spills, don't use any dishcloths or towels that you care about. They will be stained. It will do no good to transfer wine stains from one valued item to another. Paper towels or old rags work best because they are disposable.
Be careful not to transfer wine with your cleaning cloths. As soon as you finish blotting the stain, throw the cloth away or rinse it thoroughly and put it in the washer so it doesn't stain anything else.
If you are removing a stain from clothing, be careful not to let the wine soak through the front to the back of the garment and create two stains. Place several sheets of paper towel in between the layers to prevent this from happening.
Do not launder wine-stained items with other white or light-colored clothing. Depending on the amount of wine left in the stain, it may tint other clothes.
