Red wine on a wool rug: what to do in the first five minutes

The first five minutes

1. Blot. Press a clean white towel onto the spill and lift. Repeat with a dry area of the towel until nothing more transfers. Do not rub; rubbing drives wine into the foundation and frays the pile.
2. Stop. That is the whole procedure at home.

What not to do

• Do not add water. It spreads the stain, drives it deeper, and on a Persian rug can start the dye bleeding. On viscose it leaves a permanent ring.
• Do not use a store spot cleaner or carpet shampoo. They are alkaline, they leave residue that attracts soil, and heat or alkalinity is what turns a removable tannin stain into a permanent one.
• Do not use salt, club soda, white wine, or hydrogen peroxide. Salt and soda do nothing useful; wine adds more; peroxide bleaches wool.
• Do not put anything hot on it. Heat sets tannin.

Why the plant can remove what you cannot

Wine is a tannin stain, and tannin responds to the right pre‑treatment followed by a full, even wash and a clear rinse, so there is no ring and no residue. At the Farmingdale plant the stain is identified, the fiber and dyes tested, the spot pre‑treated, and the whole rug washed. Fresh, un‑set wine on wool comes out almost always; set wine comes out often and improves the rest of the time. The stain removal page describes it.

The same rule for everything else

Coffee, tea, juice, sauce, pet accidents: blot and stop. The one addition for urine is to blot as much as possible and understand that the rug will need a soak, not a spot treatment.

Holiday spills

Dining‑room rugs after a Thanksgiving or a Seder are the most common stain pickups we make, and the ones blotted and left alone come out best. book a pickup the next morning and the rug can be at the plant the same day from the towns nearest Farmingdale.