As is somewhat typical on a Saturday afternoon, I pobega’d a too-young Cali cab and poured it into a decanter, hoping to loosen the wine up over 4-5 hours before dinner. Since the decanter is sitting on the counter top, I need to prevent any small bugs from finding their way inside. Is this a problem that other people have? How do you solve it?
For what it’s worth, my ugly-but-functional solution is to take a small piece of paper towel and scotch-tape it over the mouth of the decanter. It works well enough but I wonder if there’s a better way.
if you’re talking fruit flies, they actually smell the rotting fruit to lay their eggs. Pour out some apple cider vinegar in your kitchen. Much more pungent than wine for their purposes. They drown quickly. Some will put a plastic bag with a small hole over the apple cider vinegar, but I find they get in there & don’t come out even without the bag.
Spray some Raid down in the decanter before adding the wine. At least you know the bugs will be dead.
I never take something off the counter or out of the cupboard and just pour wine into it though. There’s always some dust or bugs or something that’s settled in there, particularly if it’s been sitting for a few days. just rinse it and turn it upside down for a few minutes. Store it upside down too.
We have a handful of them and they work great. Especially when outside in the warm weather. They work well with just about any decanter, and glassware.
I dampen a paper towel and drape it over the decanter’s opening. the dampness helps you easily “mold” the paper towel to your decanter; the paper towel will dry quickly if it’s only barely damp, and then you’ll have a custom-molded cover for the evening (as ugly as it may be, it does work).
After summer visits to the farmer’s market, when I notice a few fruit flies, often invisible until you bring out the wine, we put a strainer on top of our decanter. Air can still flow, but fruit flies don’t add unwanted protein to your wine while it’s breathing. We’ve got one that looks like this, from an old Metrokane decanter we broke long ago.
When we break a glass, we save the bottom part of the stem. Turn it upside down and place in the decanter and it makes a nice top. Easy to use. Sadly, we have more broken stems then decanters with wine.