For some reason I always thought only restaurants used something to stop wine drips, until I had one too many drops of red wine on our wooden table. I used coasters, plates, and on bad days, the handiest magazine or newspaper.

When I was in Kathy Meinen’s shop in Satigny I spotted packets of foil drop stops that you roll up and slip into the bottle top, which I had recently noticed a winemaker using. They’re an inexpensive solution, under CHF5 for two, and of course once I bought them I noticed them for sale everywhere, so perhaps I’m the only wine drinker who kept sanding her wooden table to get rid of wine drips.

I now have a plastic drop stop and a more elegant glass one as well, but I still like these handy packets.

A word of warning: if you don’t slip it far enough into the bottle neck the wine pours out in a large arc and you’re likely to overshoot the glass, so pour the first one slowly until you’re used to it.