One of the unfortunate things that happen at wine tastings, apart from encountering wine that hasn’t been treated with the respect that it deserves, is that some wine inevitably ends up getting spilt. This is worse than just wasting a good wine – although some connoisseurs may well say that this is a worthy fate for a bad one. It’s also bad for the carpets if the wine in question is a red of some kind or even a rosé. This is because red wine is notorious for staining fibres of any type.

We will assume that your wine-tasting sessions have come some way from the symposia of Classical Greece (yes, a symposium was originally a wine-tasting and drinking session). Here, I’m not referring to the quality of your discussions, even though I doubt you have high-powered philosophers like Plato and Socrates attending. Instead, I’m referring to two habits that would have been tough on any carpets (which presumably were Persian or Turkish). The first was the practice of pouring out libations or drink offerings on the ground for the ancestors or the wine god Dionysius. The second was the popular drinking game kottabos, which involved flinging the dregs of your wine glass (or cup, in their case) at a target. One can imagine the mess that the slaves had to clean up (because, ahem, they didn’t have effective carpet cleaning methods back then, didn’t they?). But what can you expect from people who thought that the best way to drink wine was to water it down and/or add seawater or pine resin to improve the flavour?

Even without the messy games of the ancient Greeks, what happens to carpets is bad enough, so knowing how to remove red wine stains from carpets is important if you’re the host.

How Not To Remove A Wine Stain From Carpet

You may take your wine seriously, but even so, there is no need to go to the extremes dictated by some of the more formal and traditional churches in the case of communion wine from Mass being spilt on the carpets. If consecrated wine fell on the carpets courtesy of a clumsy altar boy, then the correct “cleaning” procedure was to cut out the affected part of the carpet and burn it so that it didn’t need to be profaned with something as mundane as scrubbing brushes and water.

Neither do you need to follow the common advice that if red wine is spilt on the carpet, the best thing to remove it is to splash on some white wine. That really is a waste of wine, not just because of the original spill but because following it with white wine is unnecessary. It is true that adding another liquid to flush the red wine out of the carpet fibres and stop it from drying is a good way to prevent a stain. However, you can keep that nice Sav Blanc in the bottle, as other clear liquids will do the job, preferably club soda or ordinary water.

All right, so what should happen if wine is spilt on the carpet? There you are, savouring a good pinot noir, when someone steps backwards, jostling your elbow and sending half of the contents of your glass downwards. It narrowly misses your trousers or skirt, but it lands on the carpet. You accept the apologies of the clumsy jostler, along with the offer of another glass, but then what do you do?

Removing Wine Stains

The important thing is to act quickly. If red wine spills onto the carpet and dries, the stain can become just about permanent, or at least becomes a lot more difficult to remove, even by an expert. Your goal in dealing with that spilt pinot noir is to prevent the carpet fibres or, worse still, the backing from absorbing the wine, because once it’s in, it’s a lot harder to get out. By the way, the techniques for getting red wine out of carpets apply to all varieties, not just Pinot Noir. They also work just as well for Shiraz, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and all the rest of them, including classics like port and claret. The techniques also work if the wine has not fallen on the carpet but onto the upholstery.

The easiest way to prevent the wine from soaking into the fibres of the carpet is to add something that will either absorb the red wine more quickly than the carpet does or something else that will be absorbed by the fibres because if the carpet fibres are already full of something other than red wine, they can’t take in any more. They know their limits, unlike some people I can name! Ideally, you should do both, although there is no product that will do both at once.

The first step is to add a clear liquid like water or club soda (please don’t use the chardonnay for this unless you absolutely have no other choice). Plain water is usually available. Club soda also works very well. In fact, professional carpet cleaners use club soda as the moistening agent when they apply the bonnet buffing technique. Use enough water to cover the spot but not enough to spread the spill elsewhere, or the problem will become much worse.

The next step is to blot up the mixture of wine and water (or soda). For this, use a tissue or a paper towel or something that won’t matter if it gets a little stained as a result – maybe a paper napkin from the table where the nibbles are being offered? Your host (or you, if you are the host) may have an old towel handy. Just make sure that it’s very absorbent, as it will be competing with the natural jute backing of the carpet for the liquid down there. You may need to use more than one towel or paper towel, depending on how much wine was originally spilt and how much water or club soda you added.

When you have blotted up enough to leave the carpet fibres only a little damp, there’s another old trick that you can apply: adding salt. Salt is super absorbent and will draw out any liquid that has managed to enter the carpet fibres. The salt will need to sit on that patch of carpet for a while to do its job. After that, it should be swept up and disposed of. It shouldn’t be vacuumed up, as the salt can wreak havoc on the metal bits of your vacuum cleaner – and all vacuum cleaners have them.

Getting Professional Help

After you have done what you can to remove the wine stain, there may be some left behind. This is where you need to call in the services of a professional carpet cleaner who has all the tools and chemicals, and techniques needed to get out that stubborn bit of pinot noir. Unless, of course, you don’t want to throw your stained carpet away, right on the pile of discarded carpets around the rubbish containers (see photo above).

In general, you will only need to get your carpet spot-cleaned (spot treatment), which involves getting just one or two stains out. However, if the do was a bit more lively and started straying into Ancient Greek symposium territory (in terms of the wine going everywhere, not the addition of seawater to what you drank), then you may need to get the professional to clean more of your carpet (i.e. the whole thing). It really is worth it, as booking a professional carpet cleaning session is a lot cheaper than replacing the entire carpet (or lounge suite or whatever it was that the Pinot Noir fell onto). A good professional will be able to apply a range of techniques to remove stains from delicate items like heirloom rugs or hides as well as your good old standard carpet, so there’s no need to despair if you discover wine stains on one of these.

However, don’t procrastinate, as the longer red wine sits in carpet fibres, the tougher it is to get out. As the Romans (who were even messier than the Greeks at wine-drinking dos) would say, carpe diem (seize the day)!