Red wine
A pigment stain from anthocyanins and tannins. Responds to oxidising bleaches rather than to detergents, and gets much harder once dried or heated.
Precautions
- Test on an inconspicuous area first
In detail
The colour in red wine comes from anthocyanin pigments and tannins — the same broad family of polyphenolic compounds that colours tea, coffee and fruit juice, which is why all of them behave similarly on fabric. These are dyes, not soil. A surfactant lifts particles and oils off a surface, but a dye that has bonded to a fibre is not sitting on it, so detergency alone leaves a visible mark. What works is oxidation: an oxygen-releasing bleach breaks the chromophore — the part of the molecule responsible for the colour — so the stain stops being visible rather than being lifted out. Two practical points follow. Heat sets these stains, so a hot wash or a tumble dryer before the stain has gone makes it substantially harder to shift. And because the mechanism is oxidative bleaching, the treatment acts on the fabric's own dye as well, which is why colourfastness testing on an inconspicuous area is a real precaution rather than a formality.
What works
Sodium percarbonate (oxygen bleach) is effective against Red wine Supported
Hacks and claims involving this
- Oxygen bleach is the wool-safe bleach Does not work
- Sealing stone makes it stain-proof Does not work
- Hotter washes clean better Disputed
- Scrub a carpet stain to get it out Does not work
- A stronger solution cleans better Does not work
- Using laundry detergent on a carpet stain Does not work
- Combining bleach and hydrogen peroxide Does not work
- The care label allows oxygen bleach even when it bans chlorine Does not work
When the obvious answer is wrong
What should I use on red wine spilled on a wool carpet or jumper?
Wool is a protein fibre and oxidising bleaches attack it directly, degrading the keratin rather than the stain sitting on it. The damage is structural and it is not a mark that can be cleaned off afterwards: the fibre is weakened, and on a carpet the affected area wears differently from everything around it. The wool body approaches this from the other side, warning that methods aimed primarily at cotton or synthetic garments are not all suitable for wool.
A different kind of treatment works: Change the mechanism from oxidation to dilution and dissolution, and respect the order. The wool body gives red wine, fruit and fruit juice their own entry and its sequence is three steps. First RINSE WITH CLEAN WATER — before any product, because wine is water-soluble while it is fresh and the cheapest removal happens then. Second, a DILUTE solution of an approved wool detergent. Third, and only where the mark persists, THREE PARTS SURGICAL SPIRIT TO ONE PART COLD WATER. Technique carries the rest and is stated for every entry on the page: scoop or blot the excess immediately with white tissue or an absorbent towel, work from the EDGE towards the centre, and dab rather than rub. Finish with a wash in an approved wool detergent. Where the label permits dry cleaning and the mark survives, tell the cleaner what the stain is AND what has already been applied to it — a treated stain is a different problem from an untreated one.
Sources for this page
Sources
Kirk-Othmer Encyclopedia of Chemical Technology
John Wiley & Sons · Reference work
Relied on for: That bleaching agents act by oxidising chromophores, and that this action is not selective between stain and substrate dye. (background and mechanism only)
Verification: the work exists and is described correctly. Nobody has yet read the specific passage.
What CleaningHQ cannot answer yet
These are recorded questions about this subject that we have not yet researched to a standard we would publish.
- Remove tannin staining from fabric
- Remove tannin staining from a synthetic fibre
- Whether salt lifts wine from carpet
Last reviewed by a person on .