A fruit fly has landed in your wine – is it OK to drink?

By Primrose Freestone, Senior Lecturer in Clinical Microbiology, University of Leicester

You pour a chilled glass of your favourite sauvignon blanc and are about to take a sip when a fruit fly lands in it. The fly is clearly dead. But given what you know about where flies hang out, you wonder if it’s safe to drink.

Despite their salubrious sounding name, fruit flies (Drosophila species), eat food that is decaying. They inhabit rubbish bins, compost heaps or any place where food is present, including drains. Rotting food is rich in germs, any of which a fly can pick up on their body and transfer to where it next lands.

These bacteria…

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