Casa Quickie: Red Wine Carpet Spill Clean-Up

December 6, 2007

One of your holiday party guests has just spilled her red wine all over your light-colored carpet. What to do? Don't start rearranging the furniture just yet. Your carpet will be like new in no time, with a few simple steps:

Blot as much of the red wine up as possible using a rag.
Pour white wine onto the spot, which dilutes the red pigmentation.
Then, wash with a little soap and water.
Be sure to treat the spot as soon as possible. This won't work once the spill has dried.

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22 Comments

Bettyesque 5 years 20 weeks

Thanks ... Chianti Guzzler here so this may be helpful.

veronicaraye 5 years 23 weeks

hm, interesting.

veronicaraye 5 years 23 weeks

hm, interesting.

I LOVE JAKE G 5 years 24 weeks

I work for a carpet cleaning company and the best thing you can do is NOTHING! It is our experience that if you start putting a bunch of things on it (IE. resolve or other carpet stain removers) it makes it much harder for a professional to get it out. The best thing to do is leave it alone and then call a carpet cleaning company and most of the time they can get it out for you with out ruining the carpet or discoloring it, but this is just my advise!

starkiss23 5 years 24 weeks

mfern64, I like your suggestion the best!

starkiss23 5 years 24 weeks

mfern64, I like your suggestion the best!

susanec 5 years 24 weeks

We tried the white wine once, along with several other methods, on a very large red wine spill (don't ask). Totally worthless, IMO. Salt was better, dish soap alone was better, the wine did nothing.

Jennifer777 5 years 24 weeks

I think I would go with the salt trick... I would be worried about spreading the stain by adding more liquid to it.

POPSUGAR Tech 5 years 24 weeks

This past fourth of July a huge glass of red wine splashed all over my light carpet. I did some searching on the net and created the ultimate stain remover. Mix half parts dish soap with half parts of hydrogen peroxide. Mix well and pour over stain.. It instantly disappears.. like magic!! This probably only works best on lighter carpets since the hydrogen peroxide can lift color. My carpet color didn't change at all!

rubyruby 5 years 24 weeks

Salt will do the trick if you get to the spill right away, I've used it (too)many times. If the spill has sat for a bit, you can pour just a little white vinegar to dilute the wine and then sprinkle baking soda on it. The baking soda reacts with the vinegar and bubbles so it draws the red wine to the surface. After the bubbling, sprinkle another layer of baking soda and let it dry completely before vacuuming.

aimeeb 5 years 24 weeks

No red wine for this girl...

aimeeb 5 years 24 weeks

No red wine for this girl...

Lovely_1 5 years 24 weeks

Yea, i think my parents need this! They seem to always spill red wine on their beautiful nice off-white carpet :P

The City Girl 5 years 24 weeks

Okay, I can say first hand that the salt trick is AMAZING. For my Halloween party I deliberately bought big containers, and even though I rolled up the area rug in the living room, someone spilled a big glass cranberry juice on my hall runner. Luckily, I saw it right away, and so I poured a healthy pile over the spill and just left it. The salt sucked every little bit of liquid up from the rug and hardened when it dried, so that all I had to do was pick the fragments up then run a vacuum over the area. There was absolutely, positively, no trace of the cranberry juice at all. Hurrah!

machula 5 years 24 weeks

yeah, salt works really well. i haven't heard of spilling white wine

Marlovestar 5 years 24 weeks

That party guest is unfortunately usually me. : (

julieulie 5 years 24 weeks

Do other white/clear liquids work (like club soda, sprite, anything like that)? Just thinking that often wine spills just at normal dinner (my condo dining room has white carpets, is that not the stupidest thing ever?) and if it's just 2 people I'm not often drinking white AND red wine, and it seems a waste to run and open a bottle of white wine just to pour it on the red wine! I mean, obviously if it is OPEN I would drink it and not let it go to waste, but I don't need more excuses to drink!

mfern64 5 years 24 weeks

My trick? Pull up the carpet and lay down wood!!

cfoley11 5 years 24 weeks

i spilled red wine all over a customers camel jacket i got it out with soda water and lemon juice.

emalove 5 years 24 weeks

Thanks for this!

karisaamy 5 years 24 weeks

I've heard the salt thing too - I don't think I would feel right spilling something else on a stain on purpose.

DutchShoes 5 years 24 weeks

another little-known trick for red wine spills of all kinds: salt! I've used this trick for years and it works every time - just pour regular table salt directly onto the still-wet stain. Speed is definitely of the essence here - but usually where food and wine are present, salt is not far away so it's easy as well as practical to use salt. Completely cover the stain with a good heaping layer of salt and leave. Usually I leave overnight and vacuum/shake off the salt the next morning just to be sure, but a couple of hours should suffice. Try it this holiday season - you'll be amazed!

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22 Comments

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