Spilling wine on your sofa can seem like a domestic disaster, but there are a few simple steps you can take to resolve the situation. Taking immediate action can save your sofa from becoming permanently stained. Use these five easy steps to get rid of the wine and restore your sofa to its original appearance.

1. Blot the Wine Right Away

When you spill wine on your sofa, you must act quickly to avert disaster. Immediately after the spill, use a paper towel to absorb as much wine as possible. When the paper is saturated with wine, throw it away and use a clean one to keep blotting the fabric until no more liquid bleeds out of it.

2. Clean the Sofa With a Homemade Solution

When a red wine spill occurs, you don't have time to run out to the shop for a specialist upholstery cleaning solution. Instead, create your own emergency sofa cleaning solution by diluting dish detergent with plenty of cold water.

3. Clean the Sofa With Light-Coloured Cloths

If you scrub at your sofa with a dark-coloured cloth, the dye from the cloth could bleed into the sofa fabric, making the wine stain worse. Choose a white or light-coloured cloth to apply your dish soap cleaning solution to the stain. Continue dabbing the solution onto the sofa until the fabric is completely saturated. Next, use a clean, dry cloth to blot the liquid up again. The wine should come out of the sofa fabric along with the cleaning solution, causing the ugly stain to fade.

4. Try a Stain-Removing Solution

At your local homeware store, you can find cleaning products that are specifically designed to get rid of red wine stains from soft furnishings. Before you purchase a stain removal product, it is important to read the label carefully to ensure it is a suitable product for your sofa, as some stain removers can damage certain fabrics. If you don't know what kind of fabric your sofa is made of, you can patch test the stain removal solution on the bottom or back of your sofa.

5. Call in the Experts

Even if nothing you try removes the stain from the fabric, you don't have to give up on your sofa completely. A professional upholstery cleaner may be able to use specialist chemicals to remove the wine stain and restore your sofa to its original pristine condition.