Tips and Tricks

A nice red wine contains a mixture of flavours and tasting notes - but also a heady mix of acids, tannin and natural dyes. When these things come together, they create a dyed saliva which can end up coating your teeth. The acid in red wine can also damage the enamel of your teeth, which means you need to be pretty careful about how you handle that infamous purple-red stain.

You don’t have to give up red wine in order to avoid staining your teeth - although dentists recommend cutting down, on occasions like February 18th, you might want to cut loose without worrying about your teeth. Here are a few tips to help hide the stains.

Brush your teeth before raising your glass

If you have plaque or food bits stuck in and around your teeth when you drink, they’ll absorb the red wine, meaning the dyed saliva sticks around longer than it should. Red wine loves plaque, so make an effort to brush your teeth about an hour before you plan to drink wine - give yourself enough time for the taste of toothpaste to fade, otherwise you won’t enjoy what’s in your glass. If you’re out and about and without access to a toothbrush, a piece of gum or something hard and crunchy like an apple or a carrot is better than nothing.

Chase your sips with sparkling water

The more saliva you’re producing, the less the wine will be able to stick around - so you want to be generating as much spit as possible. Sipping water will help wash away the purple-red stains, but sparkling water is particularly good - it won’t cure the red wine stains completely, but the carbonation can help scrub the evidence away before it can fully settle down.

Enjoy a little cheese

Eating cheese with wine is traditional - because it’s delicious. But did you know that there are also dental health benefits to enjoying a cube with your glass? Cheese - especially hard cheese - can help polish off fresh wine stains, and make your teeth more resistant to stains by closing off the micropores in the surface of your teeth - think of it like waxing your teeth. The wine will simply roll off.

Use a straw

Okay, drinking wine through a straw isn’t the most elegant or sophisticated solution to red wine stains, but it works. You’ll limit the exposure of wine on your teeth’s surface, and if you still feel a little too embarrassed, why not make that glass of red a nice sangria instead?

Worry about it later

Oh, just enjoy the red, and worry about the stains later - that’s a problem for a future version you. Besides, it’s easy to find professional teeth whitening services in your area using our simple dental surgery finder. Simply scout the area for dentists who offer teeth whitening, and make an appointment using the handy contact details provided. A full bodied red and a full, white smile. We’ll drink to that.

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